Desdemona
by RaineMcLaren
Summary: An investigation into the murder of a senator turns into a fight for their lives. The mysterious charm of a battered wife triggers Gil, Nick and Sara's sympathy into dangerous involvement beyond the case. I have no affiliation with CBS or CSI, Please R
1. Glass and fiddles

Glass crunched under her shoulder, razor sharp splinters splitting her flesh under the weight of her body as it crashed to the stone pavement. Her body slid several feet from the force that had sent her through the sliding glass door, coming to a quiet and stunned halt.

Glass dust glittered in the night air for several moments, hanging in the ambience of colored lights around the ornate patio garden. She drew a ragged breath, her palms resting with a crunch on the glass as she prepared to push herself up. Her guts inside were breaking, not from the abuse, not from the constant berating, but from the impossibility of her situation. She pulled herself together; thoughts resting on a serene place. A calm ostinato echoed her head, gentle piano, a lonely fiddle that her father had once played in the dusk on the porch by the ocean. The smell of salty air, the feel of sea soaked breeze refreshing her skin. It comforted her, reminded her of her duty, of her job; and that job right now was to be meek.

"Did you hear me!" the voice was severe, striking hard against her face through her beautiful mane of curly scarlet hair.

His cologne was overpowering, mixed with the stench of fresh shoe polish on Italian leather. Fingers suddenly grabbed her curls, yanking her neck back to bare her throat. The bob of diamond chandelier earrings tickled her neck.

"I heard you," she said quietly, sniffling, pulling up the sleeve of her torn silk blouse. The soft edge of an Irish lilt was carefully hidden, discarded.

His fingers snapped and Spanish talked to her softly, urging her to move as the maid cleaned up the broken glass from the patio as their boss had commanded. Rosalia, a wonderful woman… but still looked the other way when her husband beat her.

Slowly getting to her feet, she was now ignored as her master's domain was restored to its pristine condition, and she was left on her own to do the job to herself. She was crying, again. Wiping her eyes, the meticulously placed makeup began to run on her cheeks. Her skin shivered as she reached to pull several shards of glass from her shoulder. Several were very deep, sliding out and scraping enough nerves to make her flinch. She dropped them to the floor only to be whisked away by the maids. He was still there, behind her, watching her pull herself together with satisfaction.

"An hour," his voice said again.

She nodded carefully, staring at the floor as she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, her curls matted against the make-up on her cheeks. Blood was trickling across her collarbone, down her arm. She retrieved her sandals, lost by the force of the attack and retreated to their master suite to fix the damage.

The damage to his precious trophy.

She peeled her clothes off, putting her pants in the hamper to be cleaned, and the ruined shirt in the trash. Fingers fumbled on the stainless steel and gold plated knobs to the shower. She climbed in, the spray seething a gasp from her lungs as it hit broken flesh. Standing in the shower, she fought back the burning tears of frustration. She'd been here for almost six months and was no closer to a solution than she had been when she started. The heated water lit her lungs, refreshed her spirit only to darken once more as she watched the blood from her shoulder spiral down the ornate drain.

She stood there until the bleeding stopped, climbing out and holding towels to her shoulder. Sitting naked on the side of the bath, she tossed band-aid label after band-aid label into the trash as she covered the cuts on her shoulder. He wasn't worried. He wasn't worried at all that his friends and business associates would never see or suspect he abused his wife.

It was her responsibility to cover his work successfully, make him trust her.

She stood up, her lithe body reflected back at her with stunning clarity.

Scars.

Her shoulders, arms, stomach: glass, expensive crystal tumblers, a watch doubled over knuckles; she was covered with them.

Lavish curls were pinned up, her bare neck donned with the most expensive of jewelry. Dark red lipstick was stunning, hiding the split on her bottom lip just peering from the inner flesh of her mouth. She was exquisite, fit, tan and sharp, her eyes boring a hole into men's souls once. Now, a pale reflection of what had been; lonely lost and haunted.

She dressed carefully, meticulously, as she knew her husband would want. To be the perfect hostess, to make her husband the man everyone wanted to be; if only to be at her side, or in her bed. An emerald green suit dress skimmed the top of her knees, complete with all the trimmings only reserved for the wife of a casino owner.

The cars were already pulling into the front circle, the laughter giddy in the foyer, glasses clinking. She stepped out, a brilliant smile on her lips, to walk down the stairwell and be by her husband's side to meet guests. They were rich, wealthy, dangerous, and she knew much more about them than her husband ever could have suspected. He wanted to build in another place, and was greasing the wheels this evening. It would be a party she needed to be observant of.

He kissed the side of her cheek lovingly and intertwined her arm with hers.

She picked up a glass from a servant tray, the hair on the back of her neck shivering as she felt it. Her eyes blinked slowly, capturing each shot of the guests in her mind like a camera.

Senators, casino owners, hotel moguls, the powerful of Las Vegas.

The sprinkle of glass suddenly littered her face with a 'thwpt' as someone screamed.

The senator that had been shaking hands with her husband fell against the wall and slumped.

Panic reigned.

Diamond studded women were running everywhere, heels clacking; bodyguards had drawn their guns.

She was still holding the stem of a shattered wine glass, the merlot spattering her arm and dripping from her hand. Blinking slowly, she knew things had just taken a ghastly turn for the worse…


	2. Blood and Gentlemen

Again, she felt the piano in her head, the somber and slow chords reverberating through her skull like a deep lullaby. Police lights danced in the room, echoing off the chandelier in the foyer, mixing with the flash of cameras at the crime scene that was now taped off. It was hypnotic, pulling her attention out of her brain long enough to realize someone had been speaking to her for several moments, the name she now knew not making a connection to her at first.

"Mrs. DeMonte?" a voice asked quietly.

It took a moment for her eyes to focus as she stared at the coffee table, seated in a leather chair.

"Mrs. DeMonte?"

"I heard you the first time Mr. Grissom," her eyes suddenly flicked to him, the green catching the light. She studied his face for a moment.

"Um, hello?" he set down his equipment case, the sudden intensity of her eyes unnerving. "Have we met before?"

"No," she said quietly, smoothing her outfit as she rose to shake his hand.

"Observant," a soft voice chimed from behind him. Sara was looking over the room with a fine flashlight. "Were you paying attention the whole time?"

"One requirement to being a mogul's wife, you learn to listen," she smiled slightly, her eyes flicking nervously to the dead body in her husband's foyer.

"Let's hope your memory is as good as your hearing," he finished. He gestured warmly toward his partners for the evening. "This is Sara, and the gentleman taking the pictures is Nick. We understand you may be having difficulty with all of this but we need to ask you some questions."

"Absolutely," she said softly, crossing and uncrossing her arms. There was blood on her face, she took out a handkerchief from the inside of her suit coat and reached to wipe it off. "Whatever you need."

"…is for you not to compromise evidence," Grissom said gently, reaching to stop her hand.

She flinched slightly. Grissom's brow rose visibly.

"My husband is outside talking with the police?" she asked.

"Yes, as well as trying to fend off the media. And your name is…"

"Kara."

"Kara… that's Greek for pure isn't it?"

"I've never looked it up," she hugged her arms slowly, flinching slightly at the tightness of the band-aids beneath. Her eyes wandered around the room as if she was trying to pull herself together, waiting for her husband, almost as if waiting for him to come in and rescue her from the questions.

"Is this the senator's blood?" Sara asked quietly, looking at her face.

Nick was focused on the Senator slumped in a pool of his own blood in the foyer. Sara was slowly examining the side of her suit, but focusing on her face.

"Could be, I would guess it's wine from the glass I was holding."

"Your husband tells me you were standing right there," Sara said.

"She was." Cologne and shoe polish. "Mr. Grissom, if you'd excuse us for a moment, I need to speak with my wife."

"We haven't had the opportunity to process evidence," he said.

"We just need a moment," he insisted.

Grissom opened his mouth to protest as Mr. DeMonte touched her elbow and led her toward the kitchen.

"That was weird," Sara said.

Brass had followed DeMonte in.

"Did you see the body language?" Sara chimed.

"Yah. Husband shoots senator, tells wife to shut-up. Not so uncommon," Brass thought out loud. "He's been very, uncooperative so far."

"Nick, can you come here for a second?" Grissom asked.

He finished a picture, walking over.

"I want you to process Mrs. DeMonte," Grissom continued.

"We got another db? I'm a little busy," he started. "I'm covering for Warrick too, Catherine's not pleased."

"No, Mrs. Demonte, our prime witness is covered in the Senator. Sara can finish for you, I need you to do it."

"Alpha male theory?" Sara asked quickly.

"Battered wife syndrome," Grissom finished. "I want a 'competitive' male to push his buttons."

"You think even if she knows something, hubby is telling her right now to shut up?" Sara inquired.

"I doubt there's a lot of telling in this relationship," Brass finished. "More like showing… we need to get her into the precinct. She won't give us a clean statement with him coaching her."

"Great, you're setting me up to get decked," Nick pursed his lips, handing off the camera to Sara. "I'm getting overtime for this right?"

Sara handed off her swabs. "Just be the knight in shining armor we all know you are. Besides, Gil can take 'em." She winked and went to work.

As if on cue, the two of them moved back from the kitchen. He was leading her by the elbow quite reluctantly. Her body had changed. She seem introverted, distracted.

"Splatter central, you weren't kidding," Nick said under his breath. "Hi Mrs. DeMonte, I'm a little better with the swabs, and there's a lot of stains to sort out on, my name is Nick," Nick coerced, the husband's proximity strictly watched from his peripheral vision.

She glanced slightly to her husband and then nodded softly to him, "Kara."

DeMonte's jaw clenched slightly as Nick set to work on her face, swabbing the splatters slowly. She watched him as he worked, her face softening to almost a relaxed comfort. They were the same height, his dark features playing directly off of her intensely colored ones.

Brass continued to ask DeMonte questions, and it was starting to annoy the mogul.

"How are you doing?" Nick asked gently, glancing at her.

"I'm all right," she said softly, her cheeks flushing as she turned her head to let him work on her neck. "It's… overwhelming at the moment." She smiled tenderly to him.

His in return was warm.

DeMonte noticed. His proximity changed, moving closer as Nick reached to remove her earring.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly.

"Your earrings are covered in splatter, we need to process them," he said quietly, noticing the flinch when the back of his glove touched her cheek. After dropping it into a bindle, he tucked her hair behind her ear to swab the rest of her neck.

His eyes narrowed. There were scratches on her neck, fresh, disappearing beneath her collar.

"Mrs. DeMonte, you weren't injured in the shooting were you?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head errantly, casting a glance to her husband under his scathing stare.

"You think it might be easier to take the whole shirt?" Grissom asked as he was watching the reactions with interest and concern.

Nick pursed his lips a moment, "If that would be all right?" he looked her in the eye.

She caught his for a moment, looking to her husband, then back to him. "I'll go upstairs and change," she said quietly, moving toward the stairs as Nick followed.

At that moment, Brass caught the cue and moved toward them. He had been listening intently to the interplay, waiting. "I have a couple more questions for you," he said calmly to DeMonte.

"Can't you see she can't handle any of this?"

"She seems to be handling this just fine. Nick's the biggest gentleman in Nevada. Unless you don't want her talking to us," Brass continued.

"You think I have something to hide?"

"I think you killed the senator, told your wife to shut-up," Brass said quietly.

DeMonte's protest was incredulous.

Grissom's grin was immaculate as he leaned over to bindle evidence.

She closed the door to the master bath, unbuttoning the coat slowly, the camisole underneath spattered with red as well. She took that off, putting some water onto a cloth and wiping her arm off, then her face carefully. She pulled off several soaked band-aids that had bled through, and replaced them. She dried, putting on a satin blouse.

Nick was looking around the house carefully as he followed. The money that went into this place almost made him sick. The bedroom door was wide open as he approached it. Waiting several moments he tapped his fingers on the doorframe, impatient, and almost suspicious at the amount of time it was taking for her to emerge.

He peered into the room.

"Mrs. DeMonte?"

Nothing.

Would she have taken off? Had she shot the senator?

He stepped in, spying bloodied clothes in the hamper, he rifled through them softly; towels and a woman's pants.

Had the crime scene been posed?

A shirt was in the trash, shredded and bloodied at the shoulder. He looked closer at the shirt in the trash, tipping the trashcan to hear something that sounded like glass slide across the bottom. He had to get Sara up here.

She sensed another presence beyond the door. Folding the items neatly she moved toward the door, turning the handle slowly, green eyes flashing up at Nick's fist that was ready to knock on the bathroom door. She flinched, her jaw clenching as she realized who it was. Catching her breath, the look of Nick's face was imprinted in her brain as he realized what had happened.

It was a tense silence, the square of his jaw twitching slightly. He realized she was flinching from habit, necessity. She had been abused. The scratches were from the husband.

"That's a lot of blood on the clothes in the hamper," he started. "You didn't change before we arrived did you?"

She shook her head. "An accident, earlier, in the garden, I cut my arm."

"You garden in silk shirts, then throw them away?"

She was silent, pressing her lips together.

"How long has your husband beat you, Mrs. DeMonte?" he asked quietly, his face stoic.

"My husband doesn't beat me," she said definitively. "You're here to investigate a murder, now do your job." She took his hand and placed her folded clothing into it.

He just wanted to scream. His muscles jumped against his skin, angry at the ignorance.

"If your husband is impeding the investigation by encouraging you not to tell us what you saw, then I am doing my job by questioning you."

She tried to pass, he wouldn't move. Her eyes flew to his, suddenly scorching.

He blinked, intrigued. There was something going on here he couldn't place. A woman so obviously in distress now angry with him.

"We can help you," he said softly.

Her eyes looked like they would break for a moment, but then her lip began to quiver as she sucked it in, feeling the steely taste of blood. "I need a lot more help than you can give me," she brushed past him and moved toward the stairs.

"Mrs. DeMonte," he started.

She kept moving.

"Kara…"

She stopped at the top of the stairs, looking over her shoulder to meet his eyes before she descended.

"Leave me alone," she whispered.

DeMonte was pacing like a tiger before they came down. Brass was still pressing his questions, Sara was wrapping up. The coroner had arrived and was removing the body.

"We are just about finished, the only statement we still need is your wife's," Grissom said as he watched Nick bag the rest of her clothing.

"I found blood and glass upstairs in the bedroom. I think this crime scene has been compromised," Nick said.

Sara nodded and moved upstairs with her equipment to cover the room.

Kara looked back and forth to the two men, ignoring Nick who was standing behind her.

Nick knew if they left them together, she would be in danger.

"I've told you everything you need to know," DeMonte said. "We were standing in the same place. Nothing was staged, nothing was moved! My wife had blood on her face for god's sake!"

"This is protocol. We need to speak with your wife. If you refuse to let us, it makes us wonder if you're protecting your wife," Brass said. "Or covering for her. Which means you're both taking a ride."

"There were bloody clothes in the trash upstairs. She said it was from a gardening accident," Nick said.

The glare from DeMonte was scathing, but it was directed at Kara.

"I didn't know gardening was a contact sport Mrs. Demonte," Grissom said.

"Last time I checked it wasn't," Nick said decisively.

She shot him a pleading glance. He wasn't going to leave it alone.

"We need your statement Mrs. DeMonte," Brass said calmly.

"She has nothing to say," DeMonte commanded.

"I need to hear that from her," Brass interrupted.

Kara's eyes were becoming flustered, confused. DeMonte's proximity had moved closer to her, Nick stepped between them quietly.

"Mrs. DeMonte, none of the other guests claimed to see the senator because you allegedly were standing in front of him, and your husband seems to be coaching you, and now is keeping us from talking to you," he said.

He silently stared down his wife. She swallowed quietly.

"I think you both need to come with us to the station," Brass said.

"Why?" she asked, her face horrified.

"My wife is not going to the station,"

"Ma'am," Brass gestured toward the door. "Both of you are going to the station."

"You're going to hear from my lawyer," DeMonte hissed. "Kara, say nothing!"

Brass looked unfazed. "You're the one with a dead Senator in your foyer, you might not want to draw attention to yourself for a while."


	3. The lioness at the zoo

"She's been in there a long time," Sara said, peering through the glass. "What do you suppose she's thinking about?"

"How not to get hit when she goes home," Grissom said, watching her through the two-way mirror like a zoo. "We need to keep her away from her husband to get a clean statement. I hope Greg finds enough to hold them for a while."

Warrick entered quietly, a scrunched look on his face. "This is the buzz of the shift right now. DeMonte's wife offed a senator?"

"We're not sure, we have yet to take her statement," Grissom said. "Husband has instructed her not to talk."

"Pfft, wife whacks guy, husband covers it up, case closed."

"I still don't think she's gonna give us anything," Nick said as he looked in. "Look at her lip. I noticed it as I was talking to her after she'd changed." He still hadn't divulged to the other two about the interplay between them. "Her lip's been split. She's scared to death."

"Fresh," Grissom said, leaning toward the glass. "She keeps sucking on it, as if it's still bleeding. Must have been some gardening chore."

She was sitting quietly, sipping occasionally from a glass of water; her thumb kept rubbing the edge of glass as she set it down as if wiping away the blood from her lip. She stared at the table, breathing evenly.

"That is not the same woman from the mansion," Sara observed. "She's so calm."

"She knows her husband will protect her to get himself out of trouble. Perhaps her husband is the emotional trigger," Grissom said.

"He needs a trigger all right," Nick's jaw clenched so hard it popped. He then blinked slowly, leaning toward the glass with a seethe through his nose.

"Whoah Nick," Warrick started.

The door knocked once and Greg popped in. "Red splatter cocktail," he quipped, handing off the folder to Grissom. "Guess what kind."

Grissom's brow furled.

"Positive match for red wine, the senator's blood, brain matter, and an unknown blood."

"There is a second victim?" Sara asked.

"Yah, her…" Nick said. "When I was processing the blood splatter on her face, there were scratches on her neck under her hair."

"Nick couldn't get under her shirt?" Greg grinned; then lost the grin under Nick's glare.

"He's right," Grissom said. "We need to get the dna from that glass and a look at her injuries."

"Never going to happen," Sara said. "She's too good at hiding the abuse. Someone that prominent, that social, she's not going to fold because she doesn't want the repercussions that come with it."

"If she's so good at hiding it, then why was all that bloody evidence out in plain sight?" Nick commented, crossing his arms as he leaned back.

"Rushed? Supports the theory that the crime scene was posed," Sara said. "But why then would she leave the door open, when she knew Nick was coming to get her things."

"Maybe she was crying out for help…" Gil said softly, raising an eyebrow.

"You need to see those wounds. She has to consent first," Warrick said. He pursed his lips.

"Then we have to convince her to seek treatment," Grissom said. "You two go in," he gestured to Nick and Sara, handing Sara the file and pictures.

They both nodded and stepped out of the room.

"Are you okay?" Nick asked Sara before they went in.

She nodded, "I was about to ask you the same thing. Are we assuming she is an innocent victim, or the murderer?"

"I really want to nail this guy," Nick said. "After what I saw, we need to nail this guy."

He pushed the door open.

Grissom watched as they entered. Kara barely looked up.

"You think she killed him?" Warrick asked.

"It's quite a puzzle, isn't it?" Gil said thoughtfully.

"We need to get a statement from you, Mrs. DeMonte," Sara said first.

She nodded.

"I was in the garden and broke something, then went to clean-up for the party. We were greeting guests, I heard a ping, my wine glass shattered, then the senator fell."

"Officially?"

She nodded. Her neck was hot, she reached up to pull slightly at her collar.

"Is that what your husband told you to say, in the kitchen?" Sara asked.

"That's what happened."

"We found glass from the back patio door in the trash. Are we going to find your blood on it? Or the senator's?" Nick asked quietly. "Kara, you can talk to us, your husband can't hurt you here."

She watched him for a while, and he kept the stare. Shifting to Sara, her expression changed. Her eyes narrowed, there was something wrong, and she knew when something was wrong. She could feel her cheeks burning, glaring at both of them.

"Are you all right?" Sara asked.

Her eyes lowered slightly, almost as if she was falling asleep.

"Mrs. DeMonte?" she asked again.

Nick noticed a brilliant blossom of scarlet start to stain the shoulder of her blouse as he stood.

"Get a doctor in here now!" he snapped as he hit the mirror with his palm and moved around the table to help her.

The door burst open; Grissom had called in the EMT. Her breathing was erratic, eyes fluttering as she became unresponsive.

They both backed out of the room. Nick's expression was scathing as he glanced at Sara.

Moments blurred, the gurney whisked her to the ambulance and she was gone.


	4. Lady's fingers

Nick had been in the lab most of the night, processing the evidence again, looking at things he couldn't piece together in his head and singing the song on the radio under his breath.

Mrs. DeMonte was unconscious in a hospital. He felt responsible, like he hadn't done his job.

He stopped a moment, looking across everything. The band-aids were lying on the table under the light, almost a dozen or so, soaked with blood. Some were what the EMT's had removed, some were what Sara had found in the trash at the mansion. Her blouse from the trash lay on another table. He was looking at the shards of glass one at a time, trying to imagine what had happened.

What kind of transgression would have driven a husband, let alone any man to do that? He couldn't even envision it, beating your wife and then having her at a party shortly afterward looking so spectacular; either she was a fighter, or a manipulator, or just desperate to live the dream.

He lifted a piece of glass, noting how far up the shards the blood had dried, shuddering to think how far they had been in her flesh, noticing the smudges from her fingers but no prints. The blood on all the glass matched the dna on her cup, but where were her fingerprints?

"C'mon Nick, you're thinking too hard on this one," Warrick reached to turn down the stereo, looking at Nick's official lab coat get-up. "First name basis? Working on your break?"

"I was trying to get her to open up," he said quietly. "And we all work through our breaks."

"Man, she was burnin' a hole in your forehead. Should've seen that look when you told her that her husband couldn't get to her. If you ask me, she shells it out just as much as she takes it. You see the biceps on her when they took her shirt off?"

Nick frowned at him, letting the comment slide for the moment.

"Okay, get this…" he started. "She goes through a patio door, hits the ground hard enough to drive these into her shoulder. Who pulls them out?"

"Her husband?"

Nick made a face.

"She must have," Warrick finished. "Ouch."

"She had to have… because there were shards in the kitchen trash and in her bedroom. She must have pulled the large pieces out on the patio, and the small ones out when she showered. Her drain tested positive for her blood."

"Threw the stuff in the hamper and trash, showered, got out, toweled off and then put on band-aids." Warrick leaned on the table with his forearms, resting his chin on his knuckles while looking at the glass. "Band-aids? Yah ask me, that's loony."

"For wide cuts, but deep puncture ones, ones that could be covered up by band-aids. She must not have been familiar with how much they were going to bleed. My question to you then is… where are her fingerprints on the glass?" Nick held up a larger piece of glass.

"Maybe she was wearing gardening gloves, or a staff person wearing a different kind of gloves pulled them out, or she used a towel to protect her fingers."

"There's no dirt on the ones we recovered from the kitchen, and no fingerprints on the ones recovered from the bedroom either, no fibers, no nothing. Those are definitely finger smudges with no prints, a towel would have absorbed the blood, this just pushed it around like finger-paint. The only explanation is that she was wearing gloves, the only reason to wear gloves with that kind of mess is to cover something up or a botched violent murder."

"Still thinking it was a pose?" Warrick asked.

"It would be really hard to kill someone, then invite a bunch of guests over and splatter yourself with senator cocktail and have everyone singing the same story," Nick placed the piece of glass down with a small clink.

"What about the husband?" Warrick asked.

"Husband tested negative for gsr, that doesn't mean though that either of them couldn't have hired someone to kill the senator."

"But why kill the senator? The murder is what doesn't fit here." Warrick turned around and leaned on the table, crossing his arms. "So you have confirmed abuse, wife goes upstairs and pretties herself up again while the maid cleans up the mess, then comes back down in time to greet a group of people who see the senator walking and talking until he gets spattered all over Mrs. DeMonte. Wife won't talk because husband told her not to. Husband won't talk except through a lawyer, and now wife is in the hospital for the injuries. Good luck with this one," he patted Nick on the shoulder and moved out the door. "I'm gonna get some breakfast, you're welcome to come along if you want."

Nick pressed his lips together, breathing out slowly through his nose as he looked across the evidence on the tables. He was missing something.

"Fingerprints," he said particularly to himself. He pulled off his gloves and then his jacket, putting some things together in a kit and moving after Warrick. "I'm going to head over to the hospital."

"Still on the fingerprint thing huh?" Warrick asked.

"Yah," Nick said, stopping in Grissom's office before leaving.

Brass was sitting in a chair; they were both having coffee.

"I'm gonna head over to the hospital, I have a lead. Any luck with the Mr.?"

"Still refuses to speak to anyone except through his lawyer, he's still in custody," Brass said, sipping some steaming coffee from the mug. "We're waiting on a warrant for the house. There is a protective order for the wife, husband can't have any contact with her. Other than that, we're at a dead end."

"This murder doesn't make sense," Nick started.

"Then perhaps the murder was a by-product of the circumstances," Grissom said, warming his hands on the cup. Las Vegas was in the middle of late December cold snap.

"Or the people in the room," Brass said.

"So we find out more about the people in the room," Nick smiled, nodding to both of them.

"Hey Nicky," Grissom started.

"Yah," he stuck his head back in.

"Protocol," he said quietly.

Nick smiled, "Of course."

He moved down the hallway to the break room, sticking his head in. "Sara, can you do a background check of everyone at the DeMonte house and call me when you're done?"

"Sure Nick, what's up?" she was making another pot of coffee.

"Just a hunch, need a neutral pair of eyes, I'll fill you in later."

"Where are you going?"

He was already gone.


	5. Dr Jeckle

Sara chewed on her fingernail impatiently, her eyes transfixed on the screen as it scrolled, her finger clicking the mouse softly. She errantly scribbled notes onto a legal pad, printing out significant information. Grissom had passed the door on several occasions, back and forth, sometimes with a folder, sometimes with a coffee cup.

He was pacing.

It was distracting her.

He finally stopped. "You're not going to have any fingernails left."

She snapped a nail off in her teeth at the quick, her eyes still on the screen.

"What are you working on?" he sat down with a newly filled coffee cup.

"I have no idea," she picked up a red stirrer from the desk and started to chew on it, twisting it around her finger.

"Perhaps I can help," he started.

"Nick wanted me to run a background check on every person we questioned at the DeMonte house. Everyone checks out, nothing funny. There were no immediate financial moves going down like we thought, no problems with any of the attendees. By all accounts, the senator shouldn't be dead. Then, I ran the wife. I'm finding some really weird stuff here."

"Weird as in…?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Nothing weird or are you brushing me off?" Grissom sipped his cup.

"I'm finding nothing at all," she looked up at him, her hand again on the mouse and twirling the stirrer in the other. "No credit cards, no loans, no debt, no nothing. She either has the most pristine credit in the world, or has never had any financial transactions in her life. That's weird, impossible even…"

"Perhaps her husband controls more than just her statements to the police."

"Yah… but they've only been married six months," she pursed her lips and leaned back in the chair. "Doesn't that seem weird to you? Where's everything before she became Mrs. DeMonte?"

"Green cards, passports, another country before her marriage?" he asked. "Perhaps she doesn't have a record because she hasn't been here long enough to make one."

"What are you thinking? Mail order bride?"

"Perhaps. That's one theory."

"I dunno, I'm thinking a criminal record and the Mr. paid someone to cover it," she started chewing on the stirrer again, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "I need to check deeper into the husband's personal financial records, somewhere I can't get from here."

"I'll get you the okay," Grissom said. "I'm waiting on the warrant for the house, then I'm going back to find what we're looking for."

"And that would be?"

"I have no idea either," he said as he left the room, sipping from his cup.

"Got it," Brass held up a folded piece of paper.

Grissom smiled and detoured to pick up his equipment case.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

His lips pursed as he twirled the brush on surface after surface in the master bedroom. Visual match, one after another was only of Mr. DeMonte's fingerprints and the head housekeeper. It was as if Mrs. DeMonte didn't exist.

He pulled drawers, lifted mattresses, knocked on walls, checked lawns, gardens, garages and cars.

Nothing, and they were back to the bedroom.

"Warrick, what are you getting?" he asked.

Warrick stood in the doorway of the bathroom, closing his equipment case.

"Nothing. There's nothing in the house that raises a flag, no residue, no nothing other than the dead senator in the foyer and what we already know."

"Nothing. I keep hearing that word, I keep thinking that word and it's making me angry," Grissom's face was intensely dark. "There has to be **_something_**."

"DeMonte has a really old record, but there's nothing here. No drugs, no weapons, no nothing. Him and his wife are clean as a whistle, other than the fact that he beats her, which can't be held against him until someone sees the abuse or she files charges."

"We're looking at this wrong…" Grissom said, turning in a circle in the room with his flashlight. "We thrive on evidence, but there is no other evidence. The answer here has to lie in the absence of evidence so…. why isn't there any evidence?"

"Look, I don't see where you're going here," Warrick said, rubbing his forehead. "The absence of evidence is innocence, we've got nothing here. We have to let DeMonte go."

"Not necessarily. When it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true. It doesn't make sense that there's no evidence," he stopped himself, raising a quirky eyebrow. "Which means there is a mountain of non-evidence that we are missing that will bridge the gap between the squeaky clean DeMonte's and the mysterious death of a senator. It's too perfect, too clean, too squeaky and that doesn't make sense... and Mrs. DeMonte seems to have no fingerprints." He looked across his collection.

Warrick look at him oddly. "Nick mentioned that too."

Grissom moved into the bathroom and looked around for a moment, a grin slowly sliding across his features.

"Mrs. DeMonte is obsessive compulsive…" he said, satisfied with himself.

Warrick blinked at him.

"Every item of Mrs. DeMonte's is in perfect order, down to the exact spaces between her toiletries." He thought back to when they first met. "When we first entered, she was alone and her lips were moving. I think she may have been counting, probably experiencing some strong visual mental images. She probably has no knowledge of it. It didn't seem important until now."

"Could her housekeeper have done the cleaning and arranging?" Warrick asked.

"Look at her husband's sink," he shined the light on it. It was clean, but nowhere near the precision of his wife's.

Grissom grinned, pulling her drawers again one by one. The same precision was abundant; make-up lined up perfectly in distinct spacing.

"So she's a nut," Warrick said. "She also patches severe wounds with band-aids. What does that prove?"

"Think about what you just said… If it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true."

A light twinkled in Warrick's eyes, "Why would someone unconsciously obsessed with precision and neatness be so sloppy with cleaning up her own blood and injuries?"

Grissom smiled. "Either she killed the senator with immaculate precision, leaving no evidence behind, including fingerprints; or she didn't kill the senator, faking the mess and playing a battered wife to hide something else."

"That's dirty," Warrick said. "Are you thinking the senator may not have been the target?"

Grissom nodded.

"We have a perfect wife trying to be imperfect, or an imperfect wife trying to be perfect," he sucked quietly on a tooth, looking at Warrick. "Then the question remains, which one is the real Mrs. DeMonte…? Dr. Jeckle… or Mrs. Hyde?"


	6. The Paper Boy

Nick walked slowly down the hall, reading a file as he neared Mrs. DeMonte's hospital room.

Cocaine.

Tox screen had indicated cocaine in her blood, coupled with the injuries, had triggered a seizure of some kind. Her nasal cavity had indicated use, but not abuse. New user.

He sighed as he flipped it closed. This case was hitting him hard. It was almost like… he had been given another chance to help someone that desperately needed intervention. Only this time she hadn't ended up strangled. Not yet anyway. He still had time.

He nodded to the police officer as he flashed his ID and stepped in, setting down his case on the small counter near the window, pulling out several things and sliding a pair of gloves out.

She looked peaceful, the stress on her brow no longer there in sleep. She was so still. The serene expression twinged at his chest slightly, it looked eerily as if she were dead. He shivered, the vision of a friend in the morgue at the lab striking hard at his temple. His lips pressed tightly together.

Watching her eyes start to flutter, his head tilted as he began to put on his gloves, focusing on a distinct mark on her arm that had recently healed over. Watching her eyes settle to sleep again he moved closer to her, looking at his gloves a moment before resting them back out the counter.

He held his hand out, fingers shaking slightly as he ran his fingertips along the scar, turning her arm over gently.

The muscles underneath her skin were rigid, the tendons standing taught in her hands as he ran his fingers along her forearms. He leaned closer. Scratches, the light mars of healed cuts on her skin were barely visible. Pausing a moment, he slid his fingers under the short sleeves of her gown to her upper arms. One was bandaged, the other, was just as Warrick said. She was just as capable, he suspected, of giving abuse as she was at taking it.

Focusing back on her forearm, he noticed an exit wound on the other side near her elbow. Whatever it was had gone completely through her forearm, probably had broken or displaced the joint.

His eyes winced; hurt, and angry.

There were more, old healed cuts and nicks on her hands mostly on her knuckles, another scar on her palm with an exit wound through the other side. They were smooth, healed unless looking incredibly close. A strange callus stood between her thumb and right index finger; like nothing he had ever seen before.

His brow darkened.

Kara's eyes opened slowly to a hypnotic beeping. She was being touched. Her shoulder hurt, it was tight. Stitches, gauze and tape. She tried to sit suddenly, an instinct burned into her conscious and unconsciousness; fight then flight. A hand rested on her shoulder. Her eyes flew to the person who had invaded her space, seething a sharp breath with immediately coherent eyes.

"Hey, it's okay, you're safe."

Her eyes locked on a familiar face, Nick, they flicked around for anyone else. There was a cop at the door.

"I'm in the hospital," she said softly, feeling a stitch on her inner lip as she touched it with her tongue. She looked silently at him, her eyes dark, tired of the acting; she seemed annoyed for a moment, fingers unconsciously rubbing her elbow.

"I thought your husband didn't beat you," he said.

She smiled slightly, as if smiling at an unknown joke, settling down comfortably in her bed again in a new mindset.

"He doesn't," she said almost inaudibly, her eyes settling on the ceiling. "Where is he?"

"We have a temporary restraining order until we can get this figured out, he's in police custody."

This had turned into one giant nightmare. She reached up and kneaded between her eyes with her fingers, a scowl on her face. Her head hurt.

He was watching her intently, trying to figure out what was going on in her head.

"What happened?" she reached up to press the heel of her hand to her forehead. Blood loss, she'd passed out.

"You had severe lacerations to your shoulder, one nicking a scapular artery. You started bleeding in the interrogation room, after you had a seizure from apparently ingesting cocaine. We found broken glass in your trash with your blood on it, trace amounts of your blood were on the back patio and on… band-aids in the bathroom trash."

She was quiet a long time. Her head really ached.

"It keeps me focused. There was an important party, band-aids were all I could find to cover them. When can I go home?"

His eyes blinked slowly, disbelief at her words. He shook his head tenderly, a distant look to her face as she looked at the floor.

"You can't be serious?" his voice was disbelieving.

Green eyes flicked back to him.

"Your husband put you through a plate glass window…" he started.

"You already have my statement," she interrupted. "I was not brought to the station to discuss my husband's alleged abuse. Do you have more questions about the senator or are you going to continue to press something that didn't happen. If you don't I'd prefer if you left."

"I have more questions," he continued.

"I was standing next to my husband. I heard a ping, my wine glass shattered. It was chaos. I didn't kill the senator, you know that," she said, her eyes narrowed. "If you want to arrest me for snorting cocaine, then fine, but I didn't kill the senator."

He pursed his lips. "I'll pass that along to Grissom so he can check the rest of the house for illegal substances. Did you notice anyone around the house, anyone unusual?"

"No."

"Did you or the senator have any altercation before yesterday?"

"No."

He was writing silently. She watched the clench in his taught jaw. He looked up and she caught his eyes. They were dark, so dark they seemed almost black, he didn't believe her. Damn.

"What do you do for a living Mrs. DeMonte?" he asked as he put down his notepad and picked up a fingerprinting kit and the gloves again.

"I entertain sharp Texas gentlemen," her voice said softly.

He glared at her.

"I'm my husband's wife, it's my job to know people, place accents, try to make conversation."

"Or divert the conversation," he was suspicious. "Let's cut the crap, you're not being cooperative, your husband isn't being cooperative. We understand you are afraid of your husband, Mrs. DeMonte, but we can't help you if you won't help us. I need to take your fingerprints, I can get a warrant if I need to, but it looks better for you if you do it voluntarily."

"Who said I was afraid of my husband? I just want to go home," she said simply.

He stared at her, almost shaking his head. "I don't understand."

"Why women like me want to go back? I don't understand why men like you want to save women like me? I'm just a gold digger to all of you," she was almost accusing. "Is that what you're thinking?"

He was angry, the dark stare directed down a straight nose. He refused to look at her, was almost disgusted with her, but felt intensely sad for her at the same time.

"No, I would never call you that."

"Of course you wouldn't, because regardless of what I say to you I'm broken and you have to find a way to fix me." She was silent for a while, watching him divert his eyes as she stared at him. "You're here to try and get me to rat him out. Did Grissom send you, like he sent you in the house? He thinks I trust you. He thought Brass would be too foreboding."

She pursed her lips, watching his expressions carefully. He was going to get her fingerprints, and then he was going to find the truth; they were too good at their jobs, and she had been too assuming they weren't.

His look had turned to a glare. She was sharp; he could see her brain ticking as she glared back at him. Why would someone that knew what was going on, accepted it, still be there? Still want to return? It baffled him.

"Why are you married to that guy? Is it convenient?" the line had been crossed. He heard Grissom's voice chiming in his head… 'protocol'. Grissom had read him like a book; damsel in distress, pretty face, and he was the knight in shining armor.

"Yes, it's convenient," she said softly.

"So you take a couple punches to the face to get your nails done every week, he forces you to have sex against your will for a pair of diamond studs. You kill a senator for him and you get a new car?" He had gone over the line, he knew it, but he was pissed.

Her silence was palpable; he really had no idea. She was feeding him everything he wanted himself to hear, and she couldn't divert him; so she would satisfy him.

"You forgot to ask what I did to feed my drug habit," her voice was almost a hiss. "You're a good man, Nick, I would hate for something to happen to you because you can't help but to care. Leave this one alone. Process your evidence, give it to the cops and let them do their job."

"Are you saying I'm in danger? That's the different between you and I, I'm not afraid of your husband."

She saw his nostrils flare.

Her eyes softened. Dammit. He really was nothing but a gentleman; he was honestly trying to help her.

"I'm trying to save your life," he said, the same intensity as before.

She knew that! She wanted to slap him.

"And I'm trying to save yours," she finished. "You're not going to leave this alone until you end up dead are you…"

She looked at the uniform just outside the door, no doubt 'protecting' her from her big bad husband. It wasn't her 'husband' that was the threat. It was who he worked for, where his money went. Now she was here, they were involved, and she had to figure out how to get them out of the way. Her eyes took mental pictures as her voice lowered: the nurses in the halls, the visitors rifling by, and the uniform again at the door.

"…it would behoove you to finish your investigation and walk away," she said softly. "Sooner rather than later."

"Fine then. I also was going to ask you where you got all the scars on your hands and before I leave, I would like to take your fingerprints."

His cell phone buzzed mutely; he scowled, setting down the kit and gloves again. He looked at her as he answered, listening intently. This case kept getting worse and worse. On one hand, he was glad the jerk was dead but then felt guilty for feeling that way. He clicked his cell shut, his hand on his hip as he rifled his hair, his lips pressed tightly together.

She was staring at her hands, her fingers flexing in almost an unconscious recognition of something. Her lips were moving silently.

She was saying the same thing over and over. He followed her lips, but couldn't place what she was saying.

"Mrs. DeMonte…" he began. "I don't want to be the one to tell you this but…" he had sat next to her, leaning toward her.

Her eyes flicked to the uniform, who had leaned toward the door as if he was listening. Her eyes narrowed.

She held up her hand to silence him, watching the door.

"Mrs. DeMonte?" he started again.

She quickly pressed her fingers to his lips before he said anything else. The silence was eternal, the pause deafening. Her eyes were watching with obstinate intensity, waiting for something…

"My husband is dead… isn't he…" she said under her breath.

Nick was stunned, feeling her fingers press insistently to his lips to quiet him. He watched her eyes glare intently at the door over his shoulder. His fingers slid toward his gun as his eyes flicked toward the door.

"Nick, look at me…" she shook her head once, catching his fingers tightly as they landed on his gun. The grip was unyielding; she leaned to his ear, her cheek on his, lips brushing his ear as she spoke again, "Don't draw until after I move."

"What's going on…" he whispered as her fingers let go of his lips.

"…a murder…"

She leaned back, her eyes were flicking quickly, the uniform nodded slowly to someone she couldn't see.

His brain was moving quicker that the world around him, this couldn't be happening.

Her other hand had already gathered up the slack on the IV tube and rolled the metal cart closer to her until she felt the cold metal touch her fingers. She grasped it, unscrewing it silently from the base it with one hand.

A man turned into the room, clutching a newspaper in both hands. "Mrs. DeMonte?"

The fierce look on her face turned grim as he raised the newspaper, the muzzle of a gun underneath splintering the edge of the paper as he fired.

She had already begun to move.

Her hand shoved hard at Nick, pushing him backward as she gripped the metal rod of her IV stand and rolled forward, feeling the hiss of a silenced bullet whiz past her ear and strike glass behind them. The rod spun through her fingers like a baseball bat and into the man's skull. He hit the floor and slid into the small shelf across from her bed as the paper scattered in every direction. Kara dove to the floor, hearing the slide of a pistol from a shoulder holster. Two of Nick's shots ripped through the pages still in the air before the assailant could pull the trigger again. He went still against the shelf, his gun clattering on the floor. Kara's fingers swiped it as she rolled to her back; pushing herself away from him with her feet, elbows making a shrill squeegee sound as her skin stuck against the floor.

"You stupid bitch!" the cop snapped under his breath after he stepped into the room, aiming the gun at her as she aimed at him.

Kara snapped the gun to attention; the aim at the cop impeccable down an arrow-straight extended… injured shoulder.

The pop of a silencer echoed in Nick's ears, his body reacting to push Kara out of the way, but it was already done.

The papers wafted gently to the floor in the stunned silence, the shreds holding the smell of recent shots in the air.

People suddenly were screaming in the hall, more footsteps.

The cop fell backward into the hall.

Kara tossed the gun to the floor, watching it slide to the shelf and stop near the dead man's hand.

In the moment of dead silence, her eyes flicked to Nick's.

She forced fake tears to roll down her cheeks. He could see the sorrow behind them, but didn't understand it, didn't understand this, and didn't understand her.

A set of uniforms were at the door in moment, securing guns and calling for back-up.

Nick paused as the uniforms secured the room, looking again at the fresh tears. He gave his gun up to the officers. EMT's were swarming the cop, examining the man near the shelf.

She pulled herself near Nick, clutching his shirt; once more becoming the doting and troubled wife, flinching at all the noise.

"What the hell is going on," he whispered fiercely, intended for her ears only.

He was crouched, merely holding her and not attempting to help her up until the EMT's could get to her.

She breathed slowly, a lock of red hair wafting in front of her face as her fingertip touched the side of her nose, asking for his silence about her actions. Her eyes were darkly intense, narrowed as she took in the details, glancing back and forth from Nick to the dead men.

"Do this for me… please," she whispered under her breath.

He watched the plead in her eyes, his jaw popping as he clenched it, giving her up to the EMT's as they helped her up.

Kara's shoulder had broken open again, but she had stitches upon stitches in the places of concern. Her skin was torn where the IV had pulled from her hand. She had been through worse.

And it was going to get much, much worse.


	7. The Song of Fate

Nick hadn't slept.

He'd been sitting on the couch all night since coming home from the hospital, flicking channels over and over… and over.

Kara had been taken to the precinct. There had been a dozen police, an ambulance ride. Interviews. Everything had flicked by like it was on fast forward. Two way glass, round the clock surveillance, still hooked up to IV's. She was the last surviving direct witness to the senator's murder, and he was now afraid how much longer she would be a survivor.

But, no matter which way he tried to justify his actions, he was disgusted with himself,

He lied.

He had LIED!

He had to talk to Grissom.

He had to come clean.

His thoughts were sharply focused on the consequences as he leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. God, what was wrong with him? The scene kept replaying over and over in his head. He'd killed someone, and then lied about what really happened. He was nauseous. She was still a victim.

But, she was also something else.

A killer.

Whether he had seen the cop about to fire at her or not, he'd lied to protect her. Why? What was wrong with him? Was he hoping he could get inside her head? Find all the answers to the questions nobody seemed to be able to answer? Get closer than nobody could?

Even so, she was a mystery now more than ever.

He had to get a look at the details of of DeMonte's murder and touch base with the others. Grissom and Warrick had gone to the mansion again last night; he was intensely interested in speaking with them as well, to get more pieces to a puzzle that was getting ghastly unrecognizable as it unfolded.

But Grissom had told him to stay home, and if he came clean, he would never set foot in the lab again.

A large sigh let out gradually.

He turned off the tv and tossed the clicker on the floor, rolling from the couch.

Letting the steam roll, he took his time as if trying to stretch out the time. He was not looking forward to telling Grissom the truth. The consequences weren't weighing the heaviest on his mind, it was the look of disappointment from someone he respected in the utmost degree.

Fingers slid through his hair in a hot shower. He couldn't get the smell from the hospital off: sterile plastic, linoleum and gauze. It lingered as the memory did, seeming to permeate his nostrils; the smell of her blood in the mix was stuck in his head along with…

…the feel of her skin under his fingers.

He clenched his teeth as if he'd been blindsided, rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes.

It was beginning to become painfully clear. He barely knew her. Was defending this woman worth his career?

Looking at his hands, he rubbed his fingers together a moment before turning off the knobs and stepping out to dry. Throwing on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, he padded barefoot into the kitchen, making something to eat and sitting silently, staring at his food.

The fork pushed it around, never making it anywhere else but to the other side of the plate before he tossed it into the sink, turned on the water and fired up the garbage disposal. He drew a slow breath, a metaphor for his career.

Pulling on a sweater and shoes, he grabbed his keys and moved out to the garage. A truck pulled in behind his as he opened the garage door.

"How're you doing?" A door slammed.

"Hi Gris," he said. "I was just about to come in," his breath billowed in the outside air as he tucked his hands into his pockets.

Grissom watched his face carefully, the aversion of his eyes. He knew immediately something was wrong.

"Good, everything ran fine. You shouldn't be coming in today." He held up a folder for him, another in his fingers. "That's the point of a day off, but I still thought you'd want to see this. I brought it over to make sure you were staying home, which I can see you aren't, so mission accomplished."

Nick took the folder and flipped it open. He was silent a moment while he read it.

"Ballistics had no hit on the original bullet that killed the senator, after the incident at the hospital Sara decided to have them compared. They match." Grissom said.

"The original shooter meant to kill Kara?" Nick asked. "Is this match definitive?"

Grissom's brow rose at the first name basis again as he nodded.

"The senator was never the target, the shooter missed," Nick pursed his lips, his brow lowering as he stared at Grissom. "Theoretically."

"The plot thickens…" Grissom grinned gently, studying Nick's expressions.

"Someone had it out for her and was relying on DeMonte to do the job. She's seen or knows something she's not supposed to. We're looking at an organized hit here. I would give a thousand bucks to find out what their original fight was about that sent her through that glass door."

"She's still not divulging any interesting details. There are several men in custody for Mr. DeMonte's death, we're getting nowhere with them either," Grissom was still watching him carefully; Nick was really bothered.

"Several?" he looked up.

Grissom nodded slowly. "We had to release him from custody, he didn't make it home. Warrick and I couldn't find enough to hold him." He paused, "Nicky, are you really okay?"

He flashed a quick smile, closing the folder, "Fine, why?"

"Because yesterday you killed someone. You talk about how your gun gets you the ladies, but you and I both know it scares you to death,"

"I've never told you that," he scoffed slightly. "Well, maybe the part about the girls but…"

"C'mon Nick. That's why I gave you the day off; everyone deals with things in different ways. You need to stop a moment and take in how your brain is reacting to the stress."

"I'm not stressed," Nick sighed tightly; he rested his knuckles on his truck. "I'm absolutely fine."

Grissom's face went neutral. "Then you won't mind staying home today." He held his hand out for the folder back.

Nick gave it to him as Grissom handed him the other, watching his expression as he realized what it was. Nick scanned the contents, swallowing slightly as the smile disappeared from his face.

"I also had some questions for you about this," Grissom asked.

"This is my report from last night," Nick half smiled. "Couldn't you have just called?"

"I wanted to see you in person," he brushed off his question, going straight for his point. "I noticed some anomalies. It was not your usual attention to detail. I also wanted to ask you about something Warrick mentioned. Fingerprints? You went to the hospital to get her fingerprints? That was your hunch?"

"Look, I studied every bit of glass from that scene. No fingerprints. I thought that was weird, I followed my gut. What did you find at the house?"

"No fingerprints, but Mrs. DeMonte is an obsessive compulsive, and Mr. DeMonte leaves the toilet seat up," he noticed Nick's change of subject from the report.

"Obsessive compulsive?"

"A psychological disease described in thematic categories, her category is order; objects laid out according to exact space and width. She would also have an obsessive trigger that tries to mask the anxiety of her compulsive behavior. That might be important if we can find out what it is."

"So Warrick was right, she is loony."

"Not necessarily, quite a common disorder; much like… being a perfectionist…"

"Or being obsessed with bugs…" Nick quipped.

"Or counting…" Grissom bypassed his bug comment, as if he'd had an epiphany. He could see her lips moving again in his mind's eye, the words finally coming together in his brain. "…or repetitive words or sayings."

Nick thought a moment. "Symptom of abuse?"

"Among other things, there is a laundry list of causes," he was looking over the first file he had taken back from Nick, lost in deep thought, a melody from a master composer now forming in his head as he followed the movement of her lips in his memory. "She was singing," he said under his breath, his lips pursing. "Counting herself off to sing…"

She had been counting with the words, as if she was rehearsing along with a performer. Merely singing a song to lessen the situation? He wasn't sure. Insight into a history? He would check into it.

"Did you dust the gun from the hospital?" the question was out of the blue.

Grissom nodded, looking up, snapping back to the moment.

"One pair of prints, the assailants. Where you going with this Nick?"

"What do you mean there were no other prints?" Nick said.

"There are no other prints," Grissom repeated. "One shooter, one pair of prints, the man who was going to kill Mrs. DeMonte. Four shots fired. Your bullets match the one that killed the assailant; his bullet matches the one that killed the cop and went through the window and ended up in a parking garage wall. The laceration on his head is from the IV pole. He is yet, to be identified." He spoke slowly, articulating each word from Nick's report as if he'd memorized it.

Nick sighed tightly.

"What were you expecting to find on the gun?" Grissom inquired. "Is this another hunch you're chasing?"

Dark eyes softened slightly.

Grissom nodded calmly, "Nick… Nicky, what did you do?"

Nick looked distressed, slapping the folder down on the hood of his truck, his fingers to his temples. "Have you ever done what you thought was the right thing at the time, only to figure out later it was the worst thing you could have done?"

Grissom thought carefully, staying calm. "We're only human, we can only do the best we can with what we're given."

Nick looked as if he was about to cry.

"Nicky, did you lie on this report?" Grissom swallowed slowly.

Nick was looking at everything other than Grissom's face, his eyes finally coming to rest on the floor before closing tightly.

"Yes."

He was hoping that wasn't the case. He was hoping Nick had just been bothered enough to be vague. This was a nightmare.

"What happened?" Grissom asked gently.

"She fired the shot at the cop," Nick said quickly, running his hands over his face.

"She killed the cop?" Grissom's eyebrow rose as he closed the folder and pushed his glasses onto his head. "Self defense, bad aim?" he was fishing.

"No… no, I don't think the aim was a problem." Nick's fingers went to his hair, one hand on his hip as he rifled it forward then back, a nervous habit. "I don't know what I was thinking, it was so fast, I was so confused at what happened."

"Nick…" Grissom set the file down on the hood of the truck and blinked slowly, rubbing between his eyes. "You've committed a felony because a pretty girl told you too. Have you lost your mind?" his fingers went to his temples, feeling a migraine welling.

"Look, I was coming in to fix things!" he was suddenly angry, but his fear leached through. "She's not what she seems. Gil, I saw her clock a guy in the head! The tears turned on and off like a high school play. One minute she was shooting the cop in the forehead, the next minute she was crying and holding on to me. I didn't know what to do, I thought it was the right thing at the time."

Grissom set his fingertips on the closed file, then picked them up, holding them in both hands.

"The first time we processed, when I followed her up to her room to get her suit coat, she became a different person. She was cold, calculated, not at all the distracted beaten wife we all saw. I knew something was up."

"You should have said something… Nick."

"I'm going straight to Ecklie," his eyes were hurt. "I know. I screwed up."

Grissom was silent for a long, long time.

"Say something… please."

"Nicky…" he started. "You really screwed up,"

Nick looked stricken. "I'm sorry… All I'm asking for is a second chance; I'm trying to make this right. I was coming in to talk to you to make this right."

"I don't know if I can make this right." Grissom's look was sad as he took the folders and moved back to his truck without another word.

Nick walked out after him, distraught.

"He wasn't a cop," Nick said quietly. "I'm positive he wasn't a cop, please just check into it."

Grissom stopped, still not speaking. He opened his door finally, looking over his shoulder before he got in. "We have to remember the victim Nick. We cannot make personal decisions as to who deserves the most justice, especially when those who aren't still alive don't get a second chance."

"If we don't help her **_she_** won't be alive for long."

"Not following protocol is never the answer Nick."

The glare was sharp as he crunched his keys in his hand and moved back inside. "Maybe we'll finally be able to help her when she's dead, since that seems to be the only victims we can help."

"Nicky," Grissom's voice was soft, troubled. "Stay here, please? I'll call you."

"You got it," his voice was short, slamming the door behind him.


	8. Haunted Halls

Grissom sat there, looking at the printed results of her fingerprints. He couldn't explain it. The evidence was there, he just couldn't seem to find it. He watched Mrs. DeMonte sleeping for a long time, still hooked up to medical equipment. After a lengthy sigh, he spoke.

"You have no fingerprints Mrs.DeMonte," he started. "Even I'm not good enough to explain that."

"Grissom," she recognized the voice instantly. She was alertly awake the whole time he was sitting there, her eyes closed. Her eyes opened slightly as her head turned to look at him.

His neck prickled. Her eyes frightened him. The uncertainty of what he was actually looking at frightened him. They were cold, haunted and seemingly hollow. It was as if he asked her to be anyone, she could.

"You shouldn't be here. Tonight I am being transferred into 'witness protection'," she said.

"But why do I have the distinct feeling you don't need it," Grissom's voice was soft.

Her lips smiled slightly, even though she looked as if she was sleeping. Her eyes had closed again. "Because you are good at what you do."

"What I don't understand is why you're pretending to need all of this care."

"I'm protecting you, and your team."

"Getting a member of my team fired because you asked him to keep your secret is not protecting my team."

She opened her eyes again and looked at him.

"You're so protective of your people, they love you for it, you know that? Nick will be fine. Your people don't deserve to be in danger because I screwed up."

"What are we talking about?" Grissom asked curiously. "I don't understand where this conversation is going."

She could tell him why he needed to be protective, but they were all in more danger than they knew. She had gotten sidetracked, lost in the shuffle of DeMonte's life and cameras and bodyguards, waiting for the right time, watching the routines so she could safely carry out her task. She had played the doting wife to get closer, lost her control to a drug habit.

Had she enjoyed being punished? Penance for her crimes? Did she feel guilty about who she was and what she did?

She had really screwed this one up.

She sighed, the air moving softly from her nose.

"Catherine is a mother… the rest are sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, loved. You don't deserve to be swept into this just for doing your job."

"Are we in danger?" he pressed.

"Everyone is always in danger."

"Nick lied for you Mrs. DeMonte," he said shortly. "From what I understand you didn't do a lot to keep him out of danger."

"Nick lied for himself. He lied because he wanted to."

Grissom met those haunting eyes again, this time with a wall built up behind his own; a wall between his people and her, whoever she was.

Her eyes tightened slightly around the corners. "I care about what happens to Nick. Nick will be fine."

"How do I know you're telling the truth? We don't know anything about you."

"I've always been on your side," she said under her breath as if the very walls were listening. "My shortcomings have fallen on your doorstep, I do not take my failure lightly."

"Who are you Mrs. DeMonte?" he asked point blank.

"A loyal casino owner's wife," her eyes closed and she sighed again.

He got up carefully, to leave. "If Nick gets hurt, I will find you."

"Nick was born to hurt, even I can't keep him from that."

Grissom stopped, listening intently to the Irish lilt creeping back into her voice. On purpose? Was she baiting him? Giving him answers to his unspoken questions?

"Nick is a hero at his very core. Someday that will be his undoing," she said.

"Nick is a good man."

"Even good men can make bad step, even die for their convictions," she said softly. "because to them 'heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right'…"

She **_was_** baiting him. He waited a long moment, pulling the words together before speaking slowly, like he was speaking in code.

"…'and although a different breeding, different religion, or greater intellectual activity would have modified or even reversed the particular action, yet for the hero that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the censure of philosophers or divines'."

She smiled slightly, kneading a distinct scar on her elbow, pulling a blanket up to cover her arm,

"Ralph Waldo Emerson," he said, closing the door behind him.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"So what do we have?" Catherine asked, lifting a folder as she took a swig of water from her bottle and divvied up the Chinese food order in the break room. "This one is too good to pass up."

"Murder of a senator. Only two people close enough to see what happened are the husband and wife. Wife is covered in wine, the senator's blood and her blood," Sara started.

"We know neither were the shooter because the shot broke the wine glass in her hand. It had to have come from behind. All guests were questioned, nobody saw anything, and nobody was in the vicinity of the trajectory," Warrick picked at a pint of Chinese food with a plastic fork. "No footprints, no forced entry."

"No motive to kill the senator?" Catherine asked.

"None that we can see. None of the guests had any interest in the senator's work except DeMonte," Warrick finished.

"Someone doesn't want a senator to support DeMonte's expansion, could still be a motive," Catherine said.

"Unlikely though," Sara said.

"Don't discount it yet," Grissom thought out loud. He was unusually quiet, still thinking about the results of Kara's fingerprinting, their exchange, her quotes of poetry, her hidden words, and errantly jotting them down on a napkin. Nick, however, was at the forefront of his attention.

"Wife was sent through a plate glass door shortly before the party, all evidence cleaned up by the housekeeper and the rest of the staff. An attempt on the wife's life in the hospital by an unknown assassin," Sara continued. "Bullet from the senator matches bullet from the hospital. Same gun. Not registered."

"So the senator wasn't the target." Catherine said.

Grissom looked up at the comment, and then went back to the chicken scratch he had written all over his napkin.

"Here's my theory, I still think the wife tried to have the husband killed and the shooter missed." Warrick asked. "Then when she's in the hospital, the assassin finishes the job."

"But that doesn't explain the husband's murder, and the matching bullets. The assassin she hired tries to assassinate her?" Sara said.

"Maybe she skipped on payment," Warrick dug into his lo mein. "I don't trust her."

"Get this," Sarah flopped a folder down on the table. "I don't want to throw another wrench in the works, but I think Warrick is right."

"Thank you!" he said.

"Before Nick left for the hospital, he asked me to run a background check on everyone in the room. Everyone checked out, nothing unusual. The Mr. had low rent criminal charges, everything expected. Now the wife… was a different story. Nothing. No credit, no financial history to speak of. I worked a couple of different angles, mail order brides, and green cards. I checked DeMonte's financial records, found nothing."

Warrick raised a brow. "That **_is_** weird. We didn't find anything at the house either, other then the Mr.'s financial works and stuff."

Sara continued. "So I went a different direction. No close relatives. The deeper I went, the less there was. People that didn't exist, living at addresses that didn't exist. Birth Certificate isn't authentic. I don't think our Mrs. DeMonte IS Mrs. DeMonte. But I've still come up with nothing. It's like she's a ghost."

"The same weird nothing," Grissom said particularly to himself as he put a period at the end of a sentence on the napkin he was writing on.

"What are you doing?" Warrick picked up the napkin and looked at it.

"Merely a method to the madness," Grissom said quietly. "Sara, would you do a search on those words?"

"I'm on it," she said. "This case has got me hooked."

"This looks like a bunch of jibberish," Warrick handed it to Sara, who was balancing several white pints and a fork, almost running into Nick on the way out the door.

"Hey Nick, how ya doing?" Catherine asked.

"Fine," he said quietly, he held his ballcap in both hands, unconsciously smushing it. "Grissom can I talk to you?"

"Sure, Nick." Grissom started, Catherine picking up on Grissom's glare.

"Care to share?" Catherine picked up on it. "What's with you Gil, you're on an entirely different planet."

Nick stepped out of the way as Greg knocked gently on the doorframe, handing a folder to Grissom and scamming a pint of rice from Warrick. Warrick frowned at him, pulling his lo mein closer to him as he glowered again at Greg.

Grissom opened it, wiping his lips on a clean napkin and getting up. "Did you say anything to Ecklie?" he demanded of Nick.

He shook his head, "I just got here."

Grissom left quickly with the folder. "Don't talk to anyone," he said to Nick as he left. "Wait in my office."

"What was that about?" Catherine asked Greg, who hadn't followed.

"You're going to need to ask Ecklie."

"Ecklie?"

"Um yah… I kinda peeked at the folder. All of us are supposed to surrender any and all information and evidence we have right now," he started. "We've been pulled from the case," Greg finished.

Grissom walked down the hallway. Sara had a set of headphones on, listening to something she was clicking on the computer.

She looked up, sliding one of earpieces off.

"It popped up pretty quickly. I did a quick search on those word combinations you wrote down for me," she ate a forkful of something.

"And?"

"It's German. Old German," she said, sliding off the other earpiece.

"Old German, like old English?" he looked intrigued. "German Shakespeare?"

"Kind of, it's used mostly in classical music manuscripts, Beethoven for example. The words you gave me popped up in different combinations from some of the classical composers."

Grissom's grin was subdued, but priceless. "Where would someone learn something like that?"

"Well, some of this stuff is professional level, nothing a high school could perform unless they were awesome. So college, professional. This is some pretty heavy stuff."

Grissom was punching in numbers on his pager.

Warrick's head appeared at the door within several moments, still chewing on a mouthful of lo mein.

"I have a music question…" Grissom started.

"About?"

"Mrs. DeMonte's musical influences."

"Hey, Ecklie just pulled us from this case," Warrick said. "I need to process samples from a dead hooker case. I'd like to get back to that and keep my job if you don't mind."

Grissom frowned. "Remind me to have a conference with our 'peeking' tom Greg."

"What? You let me work on this knowing we'd been pulled from the case? Are you trying to get me fired?" Sara protested.

"The gibberish on my napkin, has turned out to be a classical composition," he looked pleased, ignoring the objection from both of them.

They were silent.

"I'll take the heat, I need your help on this," Grissom said seriously.

Warrick sighed, thinking a moment through skeptical eyes, "Where'd you get the words from from?"

"Mrs. DeMonte's obsessive compulsive mantra. They're lyrics."

"So she knows a classical song, you know how many people know classical music?"

"Enough to have been helping someone rehearse it?" Grissom asked. "She was counting off, like a conductor, or repeating what she'd heard as a student."

Warrick nodded slightly. "I'm listening."

"We're looking for musicians who have sung this piece or performed it in an orchestra."

"You know what a long shot that is?" Warrick said. "Thousands of schools and ensembles across a hundred countries."

"But not all of them have daughters. One of the main causes of her disease is severe emotional trauma. Cross-reference all of your findings with traumatic events of the members. Start with a twenty year span and narrow it down."

"This is a needle in a haystack," Sara said. "It's an impossible task."

"Maybe not," Warrick said, moving to the computer.

Sara slipped a mini-disk out of the computer, getting up for a moment. Warrick leaned over the computer, clicking the mouse slowly.

"Every professional organization keeps a running record of their performance literature. We find the organizations that have performed this piece within our time frame; let's say her childhood, then cross reference our criteria within those findings."

"Well maybe a pencil in a haystack," Sara scowled. "How come Nick isn't in here? We have to do this drivel alone?"

"Because he isn't. Is this for me?" Grissom pointed at the mini-disk.

"Um, yah, this is a recording of your masterpiece, the title is on there," Sara said, handing it to him. "You do realize how hopeless this is?"

"No, I don't," Grissom said seriously. "We've solved cases with less."

"This isn't our case anymore," Warrick said.

"We know nothing about this woman, and we have no definitive evidence on three murders, and you're sending us on this wild goose chase, " Sara clipped.

He held up the mini-disk. "We know one thing more than we knew yesterday." He paused. "And run a background check on our dead cop."

"Why would you push this when Ecklie wants us off?" Warrick asked.

"Is Nick in some kind of trouble?" Sara asked quietly.

Warrick's eyes flicked to Grissom.

"That is yet to be seen."

"You should have told us Nick needed our help in the first place," Sara said, slipping the headphones back on and resuming her research.

Grissom left with the disk pinched carefully between his fingers. Arriving in his office; Nick was sitting there patiently, still smushing his hat. Grissom sat down, placing the disk in his computer and putting on headphones, listening a moment.

"I know you told me to stay home but,"

Grissom put a finger to his lips listening to the lengthy classical composition. He let the sound slide over his brain as he thought, swirling the pieces of the puzzle in his head. Orchestra and choir, sad, sung in German. Brahms. No birth certificate, no history, quoting poetry… obsessive compulsive for order, victim of two attempted assassinations… murder… scars… his mind flashed on a passing glance to her elbow.

Scars!

Grissom handed the headphones to Nick, who listened for a moment. "What is this?"

"Our Rosetta Stone," he grinned, getting up pay a visit again to the infirmary.

"Sorry to interrupt," Catherine knocked quietly on the doorframe. "Ecklie wants us all in his office, right now."


	9. A White Knight's Checkmate

"I don't care what you think, anything you've been told, you forget. If you talk to anyone, even each other, I'll fire you myself." Ecklie spun in his chair and stuffed a file into the cabinet behind him. "This is not up for discussion."

"This is crap," Sara said. "This was our investigation."

Her hands were on her hips, a look of disbelief on her features.

"Look, I know you're upset," Ecklie said, uncharacteristically understanding even though a lick of reprimand was on his lips when he looked at Sara. "But it's out of my hands. We're done with this one."

They stood, stunned and seething.

"Can you at least tell us why?" Warrick asked. "Some of us put a lot of effort into this one."

"No," Ecklie said simply. "This is not up for discussion. This is a flagged file. It's been picked up by higher ups. We're done with it now. When you walk out of this office, the slate is clean."

"Feds," Catherine said. "I knew this one was too interesting to stay in our laps."

"So she leaves… then what? The next time we're called we're processing her murder," Nick was frustrated.

"No, there won't be a next time. And if there's a call, **_they'll_** be processing her murder," Eckie's words were cold.

Nick's eyes closed for a split second, almost as if he couldn't bear the thought. Grissom's expression softened as he looked at Nick.

"She's going into witness protection and Nick, you of all people should know to keep your nose away from damsels in distress," Ecklie said sarcastically. "You need to be in my office first thing tomorrow."

Catherine winced.

Nick left harshly, Ecklie already knew.

"Gil, you need to be waiting at my door too. You have your orders," Ecklie said, annoyed. "Get back to work, you're crowding my office."

The thick silence hung in the air a moment before Grissom finally moved. He pursed his lips, nodding to the rest of them and they shuffled out.

"Back to work then, another case, another day," Catherine said, sliding her hands into her back pockets after closing Ecklie's office door behind them. "Ecklie will cool off. Some stuff is just out of our league. I'll go talk to Nick."

Grissom rested his fingertips on her shoulder to keep her from doing so, "I'll get him."

Nick was stoically quiet at the end of the hall, his eyes resting on the hallway to the infirmary into the precinct a moment before deciding against it. He looked up at the others, saying nothing as he turned and moved out the door to his truck.

"Where is he going?" Warrick said.

"Print out anything you just found and get it on my desk right now," Grissom said.

"It's not much"

"It's all we got."

Warrick nodded silently.

Grissom followed Nick outside, watching his breath linger in the chilly air. "Nick."

Nick kept moving.

"Nicky!"

Nick clutched his keys; they crunched together in his hand.

"You need to leave this one alone," Grissom said.

"I know what I saw Grissom,"

Grissom couldn't tell if he'd been holding back tears, the light suddenly caught in the whites of his eyes. There were tears there.

"I can't believe we just have to let this go. She's going to die."

"You have to leave this one alone like Ecklie said and let it go," Grissom said gently.

Nick's lips pressed tightly together as he swiped the back of hand across his nose, hands on his hips as he stared off into the street.

"He's still going to fire me, even though I have no idea what I was protecting. Catherine told me you went in to talk to her."

He nodded.

"What did she tell you?" Nick pressed.

"Riddles," Grissom said.

A half smile lit Nick's face for a moment, as if he wasn't surprised. "You ever get the feeling she's trying to tell us something, but she can't?"

"I know exactly what you mean. Go home Nick," Grissom said. "Let me handle this. I don't need you getting fired. Or dead."

"I'm already fired," Nick said, getting into his truck. "He just hasn't told me yet. He's been gunning for me for a while, and this is the last chance I had. I should have listened to you, followed protocol."

Grissom looked hurt. "We can't help being human Nick."

Nick sighed deeply.

"I'm doing what I can," Grissom's hand stopped the door. "You won't get fired."

Nick shook his head, closing the truck door.

"Don't get dead," Grissom said particularly to himself, lost in the roar of Nick's engine.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nick sat in his truck in front of the DeMonte house for a full five minutes before going up to the door. He had already lied, and Ecklie knew. Clipping his ID to his collar, he might as well go the full yard.

Yellow tape was still attached to the steps up to the house as he approached the door, pulling out his flashlight.

He walked through the house, room after room with his flashlight. For the first time he had a distinct idea what he was looking for.

Motive. Why would anyone want to kill her?

There was nothing of her here; nothing personal, no pictures. Grissom had been right, her things were pristine, but nothing was personal, sentimental. What he had overheard Sara say was right; it was like she was a ghost. She existed in a world that held no evidence of her.

He opened the door to her walk-in closet, suits and shoes. Everything was pristine, nothing casual or dressed down. Even her sleepwear was meticulous. It seemed staged, posed, perfect, like nobody lived here and it was all for show. He sifted through the suits, sliding one after another along the rack.

He ended up standing near the patio door, looking out into the darkness.

Gardening chore. It had been cold out that night. A lie definitely, but she had been down on this patio. Coming back in or going out, she still was here.

Thinking a moment, he turned and looked behind him, the only reason to be in this hall was to either be entering from the patio or leaving out the patio. Had she been fleeing to the patio or been caught in the hall coming back in from the patio?

Either way, what he wanted was outside. He reached and slid the door open, walking around the ornate bricks. He could see the point of impact, the bricks scratched where the glass had been broken.

It was cold, his breath already curling into the air as he knelt, flashing the light around at the lowered angle.

Silk shirt. She had only been wearing a silk shirt. It was cold. If she was fleeing it wouldn't matter what she was wearing, if she had been purposely going out or coming in, it would have been extremely significant.

Why no coat?

He walked past the patio, sweeping his light over another pathway into the sprawling back lawn and gardens, ending up at what looked like a greenhouse.

A generator attached to the structure roared to life above his head, making him jump, his flashlight bobbed to it. Some kind of temperature control system.

He turned the knob and stepped in.

It was hot inside.

She was going out here, or coming back in from here.

Before an important party.

Was that what had set the husband off? She was doing something other than tending to him and his party? Snorting cocaine. A secret drug habit?

They could have fought in the hallway upon her re-entry or exit, and he sent her through the door as an exclamation point.

He swept the inside of the greenhouse with his light, zeroing in on a potter's table at the far end. It looked out of place. Sweeping the light above his head as he walked, he noticed the air was circulating itself from the inside. It was humid; not drawing air from the outside, but drawing air from the inside, heating it, and pumping it back in. He looked across the plants. Nothing unusual.

Arriving at the immaculately clean metal cabinet table, he set down his case and opened it, taking out several supplies and sliding on a pair of gloves.

A grin lit his features as the top of the table tested positive for drugs. He looked it over, lifting drawers and looking behind it, noticing a small scratch on the concrete floor in front of it. There was fresh concrete dust in the scratch. Kneeling, he reached underneath, feeling a smooth bottom. He pulled out the bottom drawer; nothing but small tools and supplies.

He tried tilting the drawer to the ground; it wasn't long enough to hit the ground. It looked like the corner of a drawer had hit the concrete, but he couldn't get it to reach, and the corners weren't nicked.

Shining the light on the tool rack mounted on the wall, he went over each tool one by one. It was really hard to tell if they had been dropped, they were all used and abused.

He went back to the table, shining the light over the joint construction and following each individual seam. In the seams underneath the bottom drawer there was a scratched corner; a drawer without a handle? Pushing on it, it wouldn't budge. He tried to get his fingers to grip and pull it out. It wouldn't budge.

Another dead end.

Frowning, he pulled the drawer above it all the way out of the table. Reaching into the slot, he put his other hand on the bottom. There was at least an eight-inch width between his two hands. He put his fingers along the seam again and pulled, his teeth gritting together. One of his nails bent back suddenly under his glove.

"Ouch," he let go, shaking his hand.

The drawer slid out suddenly as he let go and slipped off the track, tilting forward and smacking the concrete on its corner with a short high-pitched screech.

He lifted it, the mark identical to the one it must have made previously.

"After purchase modification," he said under his breath.

There was a small latch on the lid and he turned it, lifting the metal lid.

A whistle escaped his lips.

"Kara, I didn't know you were in love with another woman," he said.

His fingers ran over the long barrel of a sniper rifle, mounted meticulously in the hidden drawer. It screwed together in pieces, a laundry list of attachments each in their own slots.

His chest ached. This couldn't be happening,

Flicking his cell open, he dialed Grissom. It went straight to voice mail.

"Hey Gris, I'm out at the mansion. I got something here you're not going to believe, I got a Kate here. Call me."

He flicked it closed, paging him as well.

There was another latch on the side and he undid that, lifting it. Underneath, there was a small caliber pistol, several knives and a large clip of cash. Next to that, lay a vial of white powder.

He didn't bother dusting. He knew he wasn't going to find anything. Kara had no fingerprints for a reason.

His hand rested on it for a long time, the darkness now descending into his thoughts foreboding. Was there ever a time he misread something, misread his instincts? He wanted to protect her, get her away from the abuse and violence. She had brought it onto herself, willingly turned herself into a human victim for god knows what. She didn't need him to protect her.

Because she was already a killer.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed again.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Grissom was looking up at a set of X-Rays, squinting at a dark spot in one.

"What is that?" he asked Dr. Robbins.

"It's a surgical pin."

"For?" Grissom asked curiously.

"It's holding part of the bone together. Highly skilled implant, not many can afford something like this. It's quite a wound, a couple years old I would guess. The scar tissue is even visible in the X-Ray," he traced the line with a pencil. "I'm not sure after the injury why the elbow wasn't fused. You can see evidence of a shattered ulna, the injury probably separated the elbow completely. Probably a bullet, or a puncture object at high velocity."

Grissom looked thoughtful.

"I'm not really sure why they bothered rebuilding it, the physical rehabilitation alone must have been excruciating. Fusing the elbow would take the pain away, but it severely limits mobility. Unbelievable job though, but it's got to be painful beyond belief on a daily basis," Robbins surmised.

"What kind of person needs mobility that badly?" Grissom asked thoughtfully.

"I have no idea," he said, putting up another view. "I can't think of anyone who would choose mobility over daily pain of that magnitude. It would drive a person mad, or kill them with the pain medication. You're looking at a person with a severe dependency to pain pills."

"Or narcotics…?" Grissom's brow rose.

"If you don't mind me asking, who are these of?" Dr. Robbins asked. "They're not focused on the elbow, they're focused on the shoulder. I wish I could get a full set on the elbow, just to see the workmanship up close."

"I'd rather not say, since I shouldn't have these anyway," Grissom's phone vibrated slightly.

He frowned, the battery signal blipping.

"Problems?" Dr. Robbins asked.

"I dropped this the other day, it's been irritating me ever since." He flipped it open, frowning as he checked a voice mail. "It's Nick, I can't tell what he's saying. Kate? Who's Kate?"

"Kate?"

"He said something about Kate. A Kate? At the DeMonte's?" Grissom looked confused, dialing the number and getting nothing. Nick was at the mansion. Damn him.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that name, or the fact that Nick might be over there. I got the tersely worded memo from Ecklie about a half hour ago."

"Thanks," he mouthed, sliding the transparencies from the lightboard and slid them back into the envelope. "Thank goodness other people didn't get the tersely worded memo before I got these."

"I thought you didn't find anything over there?"

Grissom blinked. "We didn't."

"A Kate. That's a nickname for a military issue sniper rifle."

Grissom stared at him.

"When you spend most of your life practicing medicine on the east coast in military central, you pick up things. This is Kara DeMonte's elbow isn't it?"

Grissom blinked again; dread creeping into his chest. The phone flipped out again, his fingers dialing quickly as he pushed through the doors and down the hall toward Ecklie's office.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nick dialed again. He glanced over his shoulder slightly as he pursed his lips.

It picked up.

Before he opened his mouth he heard Grissom's voice on the other end of the phone. "Nick get out of there, now!" Grissom got off before Nick could speak.

Nick sucked in a breath, the back of his skull screaming as everything went black.

"Nick… Nick?" came through the green glow where the cell phone had clattered to the floor. "Nick!"


	10. Unconditional Surrender

Grissom's hand was pressed to his forehead, the flashlights blurring in his vision. He heard voices but couldn't hear, saw faces but didn't register. People were speaking to him, but he wouldn't answer.

He was watching the plants flicker softly under the fan from the heater in the greenhouse and,

…thinking.

Where had he missed something? His brain went back to the beginning. Putting Nick in charge of collecting from Mrs. DeMonte was a mistake. He got the distinct feeling they had stepped in the middle of something, and someone grabbed the opportunity to enlist an outside pawn. Someone incredibly adept at reading personalities, and manipulating them for their own needs.

He'd played Nick right into someone's hands, and he knew exactly whom that was.

Sara's eyes had fresh tears in them as she panned her light, illuminating a bright blue spatter pattern on the cement floor in front of the potter's table.

"I was really hoping that wasn't blood," Catherine said quietly, swallowing. "Please tell me that's not Nick."

Ecklie's face was also dark, his presence on the scene signaling the enormity of the situation. He'd accompanied them in silence since Grissom told them of Nick's cryptic findings.

They exchanged looks.

"I got something," Warrick said sharply as he walked into the greenhouse with determined strides. "I found this in the house," he said, handing Nick's ID to Grissom. "It was laying on Mrs. DeMonte's pillow," he annunciated sharply. "No prints except Nick's."

Gil ran his gloved thumb over it thoughtfully, looking around the greenhouse, to the potter's table that was now missing a drawer and its contents, to the splatter of blood on the floor.

"Grissom?" Sara asked.

"Gris?" Warrick echoed.

"I'm thinking," he suddenly quipped, his eyes distant. He was pacing over the scene, shining his flashlight around over and over. "In survival courses, they tell you during an attempted abduction to always fight, claw, kick and scream because once you are taken to the second location, you will almost never walk away alive."

Sara's face scrunched, the back of her hand on her lips as if she was about to throw up.

"Usually the second location is where the real crime takes place, then they kill the victim to hide the crime. My question is, what benefit would our criminal get by taking Nick to a second location?"

"You think he's still alive?" Warrick asked.

"Why kill someone and then leave his ID badge in plain sight? He's alive. He was taken for a reason. He presented an opportunity for someone to get what they wanted, and I played him right into it."

"You can't be serious," Catherine said softly to him, her hands on her hips as she turned to him. "You can't think this is your fault."

"There has to be something here," Sara said, sniffling slightly and shining her flashlight around the room again.

"There isn't," Grissom said calmly. "We won't find anything here, we're stuck between people that don't exist. They walk next to us everyday and never blip on our radar because they have an agenda that doesn't include us."

"Until we're on their doorstep," Warrick said.

"Or in their foyer," Sara finished.

Grissom cleared his throat, "Nick is bait. His ID is a message, and I know exactly who it's intended for."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The knock at the door was insistent; she finished rubbing her elbow and stood up. This was her ride. She was waiting patiently for her clearance to 'witness protection'. Ecklie was signing off, closing all records to his employees. Several more moments and she would be out of these people's lives forever, soon she'd be just a closed case and they'd move on to another. She finished pulling on her clothes, jeans and small black tee shirt, her hair into a ponytail and slid a bobby pin over both ears to hold back scarlet locks that had already sprung loose. Her hand rested on her sore shoulder as she looked up to see the uniform opening it to Grissom.

They were arguing quietly.

"I don't care about protocol, I need to see Kara… I need to see Mrs. DeMonte."

"Do you have clearance?"

"He doesn't need clearance," Ecklie said quietly, stepping behind Grissom.

"Ma'am," the uniform nodded to her, opening the door to let them in.

"Nick's missing," was all Grissom said as he stepped in. "And this was on your pillow at the mansion." He held up the badge.

She frowned, fingers unconsciously rubbing on her elbow.

"I assumed you'd understand," his voice was terse. "Does your elbow hurt, Mrs. DeMonte?"

She met his eyes. Grissom's were dark, he was angry, scared, and asking someone he didn't know if he could trust to save a dear friend's life. Her eyes offered no comfort; they were cold, calculated and unforgiving.

Picking up an ace bandage from the side chair, she expertly wrapped her elbow in a crosshatch pattern as she watched him the entire time; unspoken answer to his question, unspoken answer to his suspicion. He had picked up on her musings, and he was disgusted by it.

"A moment please," she glared at Ecklie and the uniform.

Grissom nodded to them, and they left, closing the door softly.

"Did you intentionally draw Nick into this?" Grissom asked almost immediately.

She pressed her lips together, letting him vent.

"Or did you just use him because you knew he would help you and he was convenient?"

They stared at each other.

"We both have jobs to do, we do what we can within our power in order to do them," she pulled on a pair of black boots and yanked her jean cuffs down over them.

"I don't believe you," he said softly.

Her jaw set. She crossed her arms.

"You feel guilty about what happened to Nick." He noted her crossed arms. "People cross their arms when they're defensive. This didn't go exactly according to plan for you did it?"

"Nothing ever does," she whispered, a sarcastic half smile taught on her lip.

"You have to bring him back," his face was unreadable.

"That's the plan," she nodded once, understanding the consequences. Grissom didn't know what he was asking, and she didn't have the heart to tell him. She would accept the penalty of her failure.

"I need your truck," she said gently, sliding on a coat. She knocked twice on the door.

It opened.

Ecklie nodded to Grissom, curt features set in a permanent scowl. Ecklie sighed sharply, motioning for Grissom to move. He replaced Grissom at the door; a hard look down his nose.

"I don't like feds screwing up in our vicinity," he said succinctly, loud enough for only her to hear. "It looks bad on us."

Warrick and Sara were watching from the end of the hall..

"She's getting an earful," Warrick said under his breath. "No one is immune from him."

"Wait…" Sara said softly. "Look at her body language. She creeps me out… she looks like she could tear Ecklie's head off."

"I think I said something like that to Nick," Warrick commented.

Kara's face was sharp as she stared at Ecklie, standing in his personal space, their noses almost touching.. "Is that so," she said, irritated. A curt smile was burned into her features.

"You knowingly endangered members of my team. My report to your superiors will reflect **_your_** failure to protect them," Ecklie finished harshly.

"Ecklie, this isn't the time," Grissom said. "She needs a vehicle, she is responding to the goad from the people who have Nick. She's bringing him back."

"No… let him… he has something to say," she answered his threat, voice barely detectable. "But it doesn't matter," she mouthed to Ecklie, holding his eyes long enough to make her point. "Because I don't exist…"

She stepped back.

"What do we do to help you?" Grissom asked.

She looked at Ecklie, "Give me two hours, do a GPS on Grissom's Denali and send the police. I need to leave, now. Are you done…?" she lifted his ID slightly off his lapel to find out whom she was speaking to, "Ecklie?"

Ecklie nodded again. He led her down the hallway, dark eyes from the rest of the team scouring against her skin. Sara turned slightly as she passed, trying to keep her composure.

She moved down the steps, Grissom handing her the keys and opening the door. Ecklie's face was unreadable as he stepped back, waiting on the curb impatiently.

"Who are you?" Grissom said under his breath as she put on her seat belt.

He had asked that question before.

She smiled slowly.

"Desdemona," she said plainly.

The smile wasn't visible, but he understood.

"You have no weapon," he reached for his to give to her. Against protocol, but…

She shook her head, turning over the engine and adjusting the mirror.

Once again the chill prickled at his neck. She didn't want one and he suddenly didn't want to understand why.

Her eyes flicked to Grissom, softness tightening around the edges. There was a true smile there, a tender smile, peaceful. His head tilted to one side faintly, watching the mask disappear and as it did, it made her entire face seem sad. Melancholy was embedded deeper than he almost certainly could ever imagine.

"Good bye Gil Grissom," she said gently, closing the door, turning in her seat to back out of the space and pull out of the parking lot.

((OOC- I can't seem to respond to reviews for some reason, and know I shouldn't OOC but wanted to thank you all so much for all your fantastic reviews. Definitely more to come! You are all greatly appreciated!))


	11. Spook Central

It was dark, he was, or had been bleeding; he could feel caked blood over his ear. Motor oil and grease soaked concrete were sharp in his nostrils. His hands were bound with handcuffs and attached to an old pleather and metal couch. The tube aluminum was pitted with rust, like an old diner, his cuffs sliding up and down with a dirty scrape; an old gas station diner maybe? The shuffling of feet and voices were distant.

He kept shaking his head, trying to clear it. Hearing an engine drive up, he shifted, trying to figure out a way to pull his hands loose. His head hurt like hell, the scraping making him flinch.

Raised voices caught his attention, muffled. A lot of yelling ensued, commands. A door across the room suddenly opened, light scouring his eye sockets as someone flicked the switch.

Kara pressed her lips together. "Uncuff him, let him drive out of here."

He kept blinking to clear his vision, he recognized the voice. He knew what was happening, but couldn't make his lips move. He was coming out of a concussion. He had been at the house, he couldn't remember what happened. He had tried to get through to Grissom, he thought he'd heard something. Sniper rifles, coke, guns…

The conversation was going on around him and he couldn't focus, pressing his eyes together over and over to clear his head.

"C'mon. You really didn't think…" a man said. He was dressed neatly in a dark casual suit; a low caliber pistol held tightly in one hand at his side, dark hair cropped tight to his head.

His friend was a bit rougher around the edges, unshaven, chewing on a toothpick and looking at Nick.

"Hey, wake up," he kicked the side of Nick's shoe. "You need to be awake for our fun."

"I'm unarmed," her voice was sharp, glaring at the second guy, then back to the first. "Tell Ricker I'm prepared to do what it takes, but that man needs to walk out of here, alive."

She put her hands behind her head so they could frisk her. They looked at each other, both seeming apprehensive to touch her.

"Ricker's already on his way. Why don't we just ask you to wait here until he gets here?"

She nodded, putting her hands together. They looked at each other again; they didn't want to touch her.

"You put the silver things around my wrist, then you lock them," she said, her voice irritated. "You can hand them to me and I can do it if it makes you feel safer. You can't let old rumors scare you…"

The toothpick in his mouth moved slightly, he laughed nervously. He was uncomfortable.

Her eyes slid to the other, who finally ordered her to kneel, putting them on and cuffing her to the other arm of the old couch.

"Kara?"

She glanced at Nick, the blood over his ear signaling a probable concussion.

"Shut up Nick," she said shortly, her eyes sliding back and forth to the two men.

They were lingering, this was not good. She'd gotten them to put her in the same room, bully for her; but she didn't like where this was going.

They were nervous about holding her until the boss got there.

Nick's eyes were clearing, focusing. Two men's faces pulled together in his vision, the other didn't fit into the picture for a moment. The cuffs suddenly pulled taught as he snapped into reality.

"Leave her alone!" Nick snapped.

The suit glowered slightly, the other chuckled to himself, spitting out the toothpick. They were regaining their composure, and developing a plan of action to keep her subdued.

She drew a slow breath, knowing how this worked.

The couch jerked slightly, but not budging from the floor, muscles on his neck straining as he pulled at the cuffs. He was incredibly conscious again, fueled by adrenaline.

"Nick close you eyes… please," she mouthed.

He stared at her, intense panic behind them as he realized what was about to happen. "Kara, what are you doing?" he said sharply.

Scruffy tapped his shoe on her leg a moment before reeling back and slamming his fist into her jaw. The rest of the punches were sharp, severe. Her neck whipped to one side as she felt her muscles strain and flesh split. His knee followed up, and she felt her nose crack.

"That's just the tip of the iceberg," the suit said, glaring at Nick, but speaking to her. "Can't have her wandering away."

He followed up with a searing kick to her side.

She gasped, not able to catch her breath. He pinned her elbow onto the side of the couch with the toe of his boot. A distinct cry of pain escaped her lips as he leaned on it with his full weight. The grunt of pain turned to a scream as he leaned further into it.

"Stop it!" Nick screamed, planting his feet to jerk at the couch again. It was bolted to the floor.

"How's the elbow?" He leaned near her face, "Don't even think about going anywhere." The same jackal-like laugh seemed extremely amused. "Ricker's going to have fun with you, and your boyfriend. For all the trouble he's gone through to get to you, I'm thoroughly disappointed it wasn't harder to get you to shut up," he snapped, turning off the light and closing the door, locking it with a decisive click.

They were met with intense darkness as she wheezed, trying to calm her gasps as she fought to hear their muffled voices on the other side of the door. "Stay at the door, if she moves, kill the guy." She could see light underneath the door, shadows moving. She heard weight drop into a chair and it tip back against the wall. Scruffy was on the other side of the door, sitting in a chair.

Nick found his voice. "Kara, talk to me… please."

It was distant in her ears. She was passing out, she couldn't pass out. Burning tears had sprung to her cheeks; it hurt to breath. Her elbow felt severed from her body, but she knew it was still there, screaming at her to remain awake.

She could hear tears in his voice

Sucking a quick breath, she spit blood several times, strings hanging from her lip. All her teeth were still intact. She could feel blood welling under her eye, it hurt to breath.

"Kara," the silence was deafening.

Her breathing was strained for a moment as she sniffled. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

Her nose felt broken, blood trickling over her lip from her left nostril. She was glad it was dark, she was… embarrassed… for him to witness this. Her head kept dipping into darkness. She clenched her eyes, trying to fight it, a growl through her teeth.

"Talk to me…" she said, her words slightly impaired.

He knew she was losing the battle with consciousness.

"If I pass out, we will both die…" she spit blood again, reaching to her hair. Every time she leaned her head down to pull a bobby bin from her hair, her brain was flushed with dizziness.

"Where are we going on our first date?" he asked.

She blinked, the words striking hard at her brain.

"Huh?"

"I was thinking we could go to dinner, not just any dinner, but a really nice restaurant."

She smiled slightly, her eyes still fluttering.

"I live alone, I love romantic places, moonlit walks on the beach and soft music. And you have to meet my mother, she'd love you. I like petite redheads, preferably those that can fire sniper rifles…"

He was trying to be funny. She wheezed slightly, finally able to take a full breath.

Leaning her head toward her fingers again, she pulled a bobby pin from her hair. She was silent, an occasional sniffle as she chewed the plastic knob off the end and shimmed it into the cuffs around her wrists, leaning her head down to get the other one.

"Kara?"

"Yah," she coughed several times.

"Are you all right?"

"Yah,"

A pause hung in the air.

"Are you sure?" he was quiet.

"Yah…"

"If we get out of this, I still want to take you to dinner."

Her eyes smiled slightly as the lock began to give and she slid one hand out.

Every time she sniffled felt like a stab to him. His chest burned, the anger pent up over the last several days. She wasn't a battered wife, she was a battered soul. She willingly did this to herself. For what?

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice had focused.

"I think so."

"Did they rough you up?" she asked.

"I got hit on the head, other than that I seem fine," he felt ashamed to even suggest he was injured.

The clinking of her cuffs came to a stop as she stood up and tucked the cuffs into her back pocket. Moving very silently to the door, she pressed her ear against it.

A wave of nausea washed over her, and she sank to one knee with her fingertips still on the door. She tried to clear her vision, the pain still bright in her mental picture through the darkness. Her fingers were quivering as she reached up to follow the line of her nose; it wasn't broken. She wiped the blood under her nose on her arm. Her arm was shaking, quivering with sharp tremors as she tried to knead it.

She slowly got up again, walking silently over to him.

She knelt, reaching behind his head to feel the dried blood. She tore a section of her tee shirt off to stop the bleeding, wiping the blood from his ear. It hadn't quite stopped yet.

She went to work on his handcuffs with the same bobby pins from her hair, shimming them open and picking the lock, her fingers fumbling off the lock when her hand began to shake. She lost the bobby pin in the dark.

"Dammit…" she hissed under her breath.

"It's okay," Nick whispered. "It's by my foot. Take your time."

"We don't have time," she leaned over him, her fingers touching the ground softly, picking it up again.

He watched her work through the darkness, the flutter of her eyes as she fought to stay alert. Suddenly she dipped, falling against him slightly as he strained to hold up both their body weights in a sitting position.

"Kara," he whispered in her ear, leaning her head up with his shoulder. "C'mon Kara."

Her fingers abruptly slapped on the floor to push herself up; breathing deeply. She turned his hand and kept working on the lock.

"Hey…" he said tenderly. "I'm sorry."

She was silent, blinking hard to fight unconsciousness.

He heard her lips move, the same words over and over as she concentrated. He could feel the tremor in her arm that was touching his chest; her bicep was shaking.

"Are you okay?"

She wasn't okay, she as on the verge of a crash. She couldn't do this. She'd promised, but she was having doubts. He didn't deserve this, none of them did. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, she paused, hearing someone at the door.

The door lock clicked.

She got up with a hobbled scrape, leaving the pin shimmed in his cuffs and moved swiftly to place herself behind the door as it opened, dizziness flushing past her eyes.

A thin sliver of light illuminated the room. Scruffy peered in. Seeing her not there, his gun pulled out. It was too late; grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back at an odd angle, her fingers slapped on his lips to keep him quiet.

"Elbow's fine…" she hissed in his ear as she twisted his neck, with a muted snap, laying him down quietly as he twitched a moment, then fell silent.

Her fingers grabbed her arm as she fell against the wall, gasping at the pain…

Gritting her teeth, she went through his pockets, stuffing his gun in the back of her pants and moving back to Nick.

She heard another car drive up.

The cuffs snapped open and he got up.

"We have to go now…" she quipped. "Now!"


	12. Dark Confession

Kara held her breath, thinking quickly.

The sound of the car gave way to an errant idle and the slamming of more doors. She moved quickly to peer out the window, watching a man in the darkness pace along an east fence with an automatic.

She returned to the door, looking out and checking the clip in the gun. Four shots.

Nick winced, catching a look at the damage to her face in the wane light from beyond the door. It looked painful, unbelievable, and every bit as heartbreaking as it had been to witness. His face scrunched, watching her move and trying to figure out where she was going with her thoughts.

She stepped over the body, grabbing its hand with her good arm and pulling it from the path of the door. She closed the door, unable to lock it from the inside. Slipping the cuffs from her back pocket, she hooked one around the doorknob, the other in the remnants of a door chain on the doorframe. She pulled it; it wasn't going to open. It bought them a few minutes at best. One thing taken care of.

She turned, suddenly feeling Nick's fingers on her face, touching a laceration on her cheek and the bruise under her eye with his thumb. "Are you **_sure_** you're okay, you look half on an ambulance back to the hospital."

She nodded, looking at him through the darkness with narrowed eyes. Something odd passed between them, her face flinching from his touch; uncomfortable under the concern.

"We go down the mountain," she said, turning sharply to the window and prying at the lock.

He was silent as she undid the latch.

"Where are we…?" he asked softly, the heat of his body close behind her as he watched the same man pacing the fence disappear around the corner.

"Near Lake Mead. Access roads run up the side of the mountains for hikers. They also make really good places for people who don't want to be found to hide. It's six miles to the main road, hiking down through the trees. I came alone in Grissom's truck." She heard another door slam. "They're not due for another hour, we can't stay here."

She jimmied the window, pushing it out as she propped it without a sound, eyes on the watchman that moved back around the corner into their sight, walking away from them. She pulled her gun, climbing out first with it on point and crouched, beckoning Nick out.

She watched her breath a moment, eyes on the watchman again as he moved back around the corner and out of sight. Beyond the back of the run down building, there was a break in the fence, darkness into the trees beyond.

"When I move, we run. Keep your head low."

He nodded. They did not have a lot of time before Scruffy was discovered. She heard the door rattle, the cuffs clinking.

Too late.

She heard the door splinter behind them through the open window. Her fingers motioned forward and she moved toward the back fence at a crouched run. They crested a small hill and jumped into the darkness.

"Get in front of me!" she hissed. "Keep your head low"

He went to protest but she pushed him ahead of her, sliding her gun in the back of her pants as they ran, jumping over brush.

She heard the first shot zip through the trees about three yards to her right. Another bullet whizzed past her head in the darkness. She winced but kept moving, the slant downward increasing sharply as she started to slide. Her feet started slipping every other step as they descended.

Automatic fire began to rip through the darkness. Fingers on her bad arm grabbed his shirt, pulling them both to the ground with a grunt. Trees splintered above their heads, raining debris onto them as she suddenly began to slide down the hill as it became steeper, the loose dirt and rocks rolling under her as she felt Nick sliding down the hill next to her.

She couldn't stop sliding, hearing Nick's boot hit a tree sharply to stop himself. He reached to her instantly, feeling her forearm slide through his fingers but snapping his hand shut on her hand.

Her feet spun out into loose air, his name on her lips as he caught her.

He gritted his teeth, a dark growl through the clench as every muscle in his body strained to hold on to her. Debris kept sliding past them, bouncing down the side of a sheer drop off

The gunfire had ceased.

"I don't think we should go that way," he said with a lick of sarcasm, reaching down with his other hand to pull her up.

Flinching, she reached with her other hand to draw herself up. She caught her breath, looking up the steep incline; they had slid almost a hundred feet. They couldn't follow.

She got her grip, leaning her head back against rock, swallowing hard. The lip on the edge was wide enough to stand on.

"They were shooting blind into the dark…" she said, out of breath "They didn't know which way we went, they're more accurate than that."

Her eyes squinted, looking left and right to try and figure out where they were.

"Go left," she whispered, his hand holding strong to hers to balance as they crept along the edge silently, finding a foothold path to continue their descent.

The gun came out again on point. She knew better. She knew the others would probably not be the ones following them. There would be no more automatic fire or pursuit by thugs. This was personal, and Ricker would take care of this himself. It was now a game, and she had an extra game piece to worry about.

They ran downhill for almost an hour through the darkness, stumbling over rocks and brush. Her body ached, hurt, and bled. She was freezing, watching her breath curl ahead of her as her chest heaved.

Nick was faring a bit better, he had been in pristine health the last several days except for his concussion; but his head felt a bit fuzzy, distant.

"We need to rest… just for a moment," he finally said, his hands resting on his knees.

She looked at him quietly, kneeling as her fingers touched something on the ground. "We can't."

"Why?"

"Because we're being followed."

"By?"

"Someone we don't want to find us," she said quietly, looking at the brightening sky. "We need to find a place to hide. Too dangerous in the light."

"We need to keep moving."

"You need to do what I tell you," she said shortly.

Her eyes swept the landscape, shivering slightly, watching her breath. There was no sign of pursuit, but she knew better. Her Moriarty had the upper hand.

"There," she pointed in the darkness. Brush almost completely covered a deep crevice in a shrap of rock, hindered by trees. "You lead the way."

He nodded. She walked behind him, checking for incriminating evidence of their presence and dusting over any footprints they were leaving.

She winced as she pushed her way through the brush. There was a crawl space, barely big enough for two bodies. She instructed Nick to climb in first.

He paused. "I can't."

"You have to," she shoved him in and slid in behind him.

It opened a bit wider as it went in, tall enough to sit up in, and she was thankful no wildlife had moved in first.

"We will rest, get warm, and keep moving when it gets dark," she said.

He leaned against the back wall as she leaned next to him, catching her breath and resting her forearm on her knee.

He looked uncomfortable, his eyes closing as the world seemed to follow suit around him.

"Are you okay?"

He nodded.

She watched the opening, shivering. "You want to tell me why you're lying?" she asked.

"Nope."

His eyes cracked slightly to notice the shivering. He wanted to help her, but decided against it.

"If I'm not awake at dark, take the gun and go, straight down the side and you'll hit the main road," she directed, looking at him with dark eyes. "Run like hell."

"And what about you?"

"This isn't about me, it's about you," her voice was calm.

"And what about you?" he echoed.

She pressed her lips together and looked back out the opening, her finger taught on the trigger.

"We're both getting out of here," he said.

Her face was unreadable.

He was perceptive. Her eyes kept fluttering, too heavy to keep open. If she slipped under, he would be on his own. If Ricker found them, Nick would be killed. He was a leverage to get her cooperation, and there was no way she would watch him be tortured for her.

Her head turned to look at him forebodingly.

He returned the look, fear and question around the edges of his eyes.

Doubts, she had developed severe doubts she could make this happen. She didn't have any resources, she couldn't think. They were not going to make it out alive.

Her eyes were too heavy to remain open, the last thing she remembered was him speaking to her, but the words were lost to fatigue.

She was exhausted, and her dreams were strange, fading in and out of consciousness. She smelled the sea, heard her father's violin, and Nick's voice. Nick was talking to her, his words fading in and out as she faded in and out of consciousness. She was no longer shivering. Her legs and feet were cold, her nose was cold, but her body was warm. He had pulled her to him, leaning her against his chest and wrapping his coat around the both of them. Her head had been tilted her head to one side, keeping it from tipping back. There was no linger any blood on her face; he had probably wiped it off.

Her eyes finally opened, clearing. He was talking about a family barbecue. Someone had slipped off a picnic table and broken their arm, and his father had carried them to the hospital down the street.

"My father was a musician…" her voice was quiet. She didn't know where the comment came from.

He smiled slightly.

"Welcome back," he said.

Her head hurt, jaw hurt to move. She was incredibly stiff. "How long…?"

"Most of the day, we have an hour yet, at least."

She drew a deep breath, listening to the wind move the brush outside, content with where she was leaning for now.

"What's your real name?" he asked gently.

She didn't answer. She stared out the opening, a dark red hue signaling the setting sun.

"How come you won't tell me?"

"Because when this is all over, it won't matter to you."

"If it didn't matter, I wouldn't have asked."

Silence.

"Why are you so interested?" she said finally, her tone calm.

"Because I'm trying to understand you."

"There's nothing to understand."

"I found your rifle at the house, and your guns, and your coke," he let it hang a moment. "I want to understand that."

She said nothing for a long time. "And I'm sure if I searched through your things I'd find your skeletons too."

She was shivering again, he gripped her tighter.

"I kill killers," she sat up, suddenly uncomfortable, running her cold hands over her face and retrieving the gun setting next to his leg. She turned, looking at him, "Is that what you want to hear?"

He flinched. She had dark bruises; the injuries from last night had set.

"How does one come to… kill people for a living?" he asked, his voice barely there.

She was silent for a long time. "I don't kill people; I kill killers." Her eyes flashed, watching back out the opening. "You have to have nothing to lose."

"Nobody has nothing to lose," he answered, matching her tone.

She glared at him.

"So you get beat up for nothing?" his face was set, jaw ticking at the thought.

"I take care of things that normal people can't deal with; my work keeps people like you safe."

"Who keeps you safe?" he asked.

She look to the ground, then back to him with renewed anger.

"I'm not going to apologize for what I do, including using you to do what needed to be done."

"And what if they had killed me?" he said calmly.

Her lips pressed together, and she turned her back to him, facing the opening.

"What if they had killed you back there?" he posed another question.

"You'd be in a ditch, and I'd be dead and a star in a book somewhere."

"I can't accept that," his voice was stubborn.

"I never asked you to," she said bitterly.

His chest hurt for her. He couldn't accept it, even though she was selflessly comfortable with the abuse.

"Going through life alone, no one for friendship, no real love, no one to mourn your death or pay proper respects when you die…" he started.

The pistol snapped up, the aim true at his face.

His nostrils flared as he froze, words still on his lips.

"I don't need you to remind me what my life consists of," her voice was extremely dark.

"Kara, I'm sorry…"

Her face flinched several times, the gun flickering as her elbow began to shake. Tears edged the corners of her eyes.

"So am I," she said softly.

He moved forward slowly against her aim, removing the gun from her hand.

She watched his tentative stance, he was scared of her. Everyone, anyone she would ever know would always be scared of her. She was a bringer of death, a killer, and would die doing the same.

He reached up to rub his thumb across the cut on her cheek that was bleeding again. It needed stitches.

She flinched from him.

His anger burned at the flinch. He reached in his pocket and took the piece of her tee shirt, holding it to her cheek.

He rested his forehead on hers.

"We're gonna get out of this, you hear me? **_We_**. Don't do anything heroic," he said.

She nodded slightly, her nose touching his for a split second.

She kept it there… drawing a slow breath as his kiss was warm, unexpected.

His fingers touched the back of her neck gently, her hair like silk over his fingers. She had begun to shiver again. She drew a slow breath; feeling his fingers still pressing the cloth to her cheek. For a moment she was someone else, a person that had only ever been real for a fraction of time. She'd spent more time pretending than she had ever spent existing.

A stick sharply cracked, the moment shattering as the gun was back in her fingers, and she'd whirled to point at the opening with explicit attention.

Her eyes narrowed as she crept toward the opening, moving out and checking her corners with intense expertise.

The butt of a rifle cracked the back of her neck and she hit the ground sharply, spinning to meet the face of an enemy…

…and the business end of a rifle.


	13. Iago

((Warning- Strong language and action. Not explicit enough for M, but felt it necessary to caution.))

The cement was barren, cold. The couch: pleather, worn, torn at the edges with the disintegrating stuffing leaking from the corners. Fresh scrapes had worn the pitted rust on the armrests shiny in some places. Bloody handcuffs were still attached limply to the broken doorframe.

Grissom watched the coroner prop the gurney, bagged body ready for transport. He was drawing all the details together in his brain, eyes sliding from place to place silently as he contemplated what had happened, taking pictures.

"No sign of 'em," Warrick said as he stepped carefully through the door, watching the coroner roll the gurney out the door to the awaiting van. "Four in custody, dead guy makes five."

Grissom squinted at the room again, "Neck's broken," he said absently.

The window was open, Grissom's head tilted gently to one side.

"What're you thinking?" Warrick observed.

Grissom's eyes followed the line of sight out the window, looking at the bent bloody bobby pin sitting on the windowsill, and a break in the fence to the trees beyond.

His eyes flicked to the blood on the floor.

"They're out there…"

Warrick followed Grissom's gaze, rubbing his chin slightly.

"How do you figure?" he asked.

"She's leaving us a trail."

"You think they got away?" Warrick said bluntly. He pressed his lips tight together. "I don't want to be the devil's advocate here," his voice was incredibly quiet, intimate and sad. "But we have to start considering the possibility that they were killed and dumped."

Grissom's eyes closed for a moment, reopening to look at him. "I don't believe that."

Warrick's lips pursed. "Gris, they're not here. There's blood all over the floor. We have to look at the evidence and consider the possibility…"

"No!" Gil's face was dark, pained. His eyes closed again as he pulled the uncharacteristic frustration carefully back under control. He began to speak, jaw setting. "I see other evidence. Follow my thoughts for a moment," he began. "Kara shows up, talks her way into the room, finds Nick handcuffed to the couch there." He walked over to the corner of the couch, studying the room again. "She makes a deal, gets cuffed to the other end; there." He moved to the opposite side.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Bad guys don't make deals," Grissom grinned slightly. "They keep them both. Now Kara's in a room alone with the person she came to get, window, tree cover within running distance. She had a plan. Her plan was to get Nick out."

"Explain the blood," he crossed his arms.

"Hers. Unlucky there turns her jaw into hamburger; there were cuts on his knuckles. She bled enough to convince him to leave them alone. "

"Then how'd they get out? That's a helluva lot of blood."

"She was here when she got hit," he pointed at the floor. "She got out of the cuffs, went to get Nick out; there's blood on the handcuffs on the floor. During the process somehow, bad guy gets his neck snapped. She secures the door, and they go out the window."

"How you figure?"

Grissom held up a small bobby pin sitting on the windowsill with his gloved fingers. "She had this in her hair when I saw her last. They're on the mountain," he smiled slightly.

"But why keep them alive?" Warrick asked. "Assuming they still are. Why would anyone keep two liabilities?"

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to get her on their terms. Nick was taken to flush her out. When they had her, the biggest bad guy comes and finishes the job."

"Which probably means the guy we want isn't even here," Warrick said absently, squinting as he looked out the window.

Grissom thought a moment, his face paling as he looked out the window. Warrick's eyes snapped to his at the same moment.

"He's out there with them," Grissom said quickly. "We need a chopper, thermal imaging… it's getting dark and we don't have much time."

"If any," Warrick commented as he moved through the door.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Her elbows dug into the ground, her hands up next to her shoulders to show she was unarmed. The pistol was within reach, a dark blob on the ground out of the corner of her eye under the foliage. He'd come out of nowhere, waiting until she had cleared the line of brush from their hiding spot to make his move. Nick was still hidden and damn well had better stay there…

She squinted slightly, refusing the urge to look at her gun.

"Easy… easy easy…" his voice grated, the rifle's muzzle tracing her eyebrow.

The tone was low; almost a whisper. It slithered with the irritated timbre of a chain smoker with a southern accent.

"I've been looking over my shoulder ever since I got wind you were here," he began, lips lit with amusement at an undisclosed humor. "Six months they told me. And here we are… Tell your boyfriend to stop moving or he'll be putting your skull back together."

She drew a slow breath, eyes flicking to Nick.

"We can talk about this," Nick said slowly, the discreet snap of brush had ceased. "Just tell me what you want."

Damn him!

The muzzle thumped against her skull as he answered Nick. "I want her."

"You can't have her," Nick said.

Ricker laughed slightly. "Do you even know what you are protecting?"

"Enlighten me," Nick said.

"Fine," Ricker smiled, deep cheeks stretching over gaunt cheekbones. "You're protecting a whore. The Man's hooker."

Nick's eyes flinched around the edges.

He was going to tell him their dirty little secrets, which meant he was going to kill him.

"A woman who sells herself to the highest bidder. A woman who thinks she is saving the right of the world by selling her soul. A woman that will do anything to get paid. Ask her if she enjoys it." He paused. "Go ahead, ask her," his voice was hushed.

Nick looked at her, an expression of confused hurt on his face.

She couldn't meet his eyes.

Ricker smiled. "What a catch… you got this guy snowed good."

"Shut up," she hissed. "Shut up! He can still walk away from this."

"Come on…" he made a face. "You know how this works. You can't honestly think he could walk away after he knew who you were? Who else did you condemn to a death sentence?"

"They figured it out on their own," she quipped.

"Only after you screwed up."

Her lips pressed together. "Then kill me, but they didn't have any part in this. They don't know who you are, where you are."

"You think that they couldn't find me? They found you, I kill someone they are willing to protect and damn straight they'll find me."

"You're going to kill them all then? Even you're not good enough to get out of that one," she said darkly.

"One by one…" his voice was quiet, only to her. "Starting with you, then him… or maybe the other way around just for fun. You can die knowing that you ruined the lives of dozens of people. A car accident here, mugging there; mark my words, everyone involved will die," he paused, "and it's your fault."

She clenched her teeth, watching his eyes divert. He looked at Nick; that was all she needed.

"Once, I was scared when I heard that she was after me. Now… I realize what happens when good killers get lazy," he started, interrupted when an angry gritted scream preceded a sharp hit to his rifle, her hand grabbing the muzzle. She jerked his aim to the side, shoving it back into his chest with an intense jab and tackling him as he caught his breath. The rifle clattered away.

They rolled over each other in the loose dust; she was the first to break the grapple as she flipped to her feet and threw several strong punches to his face.

Nick had grabbed the gun and was aiming, trying to follow Ricker's movements.

"Shoot him!" Kara hissed, diving for the rifle with both hands.

They both grabbed for it at the same time.

She twisted, trying to pry it from his hands. Her arm wouldn't hold; she couldn't hang onto it.

Nick couldn't get a good shot; they were too close, moving too fast.

She felt the air move before she saw it, the chop of rotor blades in the air. The time to think was over, and Ricker knew it too. If he stayed, he would be caught. If he fled, he would lose his prize. He suddenly pulled the rifle up sharply into her face and she let go.

Nick fired a shot into the air as the rifle snapped to Nick. He had a clean shot on Nick's face.

Nick had a clean shot on Ricker's face.

Brightness flooded her vision as she slid to the ground and landed against Ricker's legs, her nose began to bleed again.

"A moment and this will be all over," Nick said. "How's this gonna end!" He wasn't trying to be heroic; he was terrified. Glitter around the rims of his eyes betrayed him. Tears. Undeterred, he stood staunch with a two handed aim, posture threatening.

"Can you shoot me?" Ricker's voice slithered. "I can shoot you before you pull the trigger. No matter how fast you are…" his eyes narrowed, "I'm faster. Look at you… you're a kid, a little boy with a gun."

Blinking to clear her vision, she was spent; their words were muddy in her ears but Nick's situation sharp in her brain. She tried to get up, her fingers brushing Ricker's boot.

A knife.

She breathed in short gasps, praying Nick could hold the standoff as her fingers reached undetected to Ricker's boot; sliding out the knife. Ricker's eyes snapped to her just as she reached back to strike, sinking the blade into the meat of his thigh with a sickening 'thuck'.

A curse was lost in the pop as the rifle went off; aim skewed as he fell backward holding his thigh and dropped the rifle. He staggered to his good leg, holding his thigh as the spotlight of a chopper sliced through the wane light of evening. Brush and dust whipped in the clearing as it crested a line of trees, creating a blind wall of swirling dirt.

She shielded her face, reaching for the rifle where it had fallen.

It wasn't there. She regained her bearings to see the back of Ricker's coat as he staggered into a line of trees.

"Shoot him Nick!" she screamed.

"I can't see anything!" the panic and tears were caught in his throat. Several pistol shots went off, the dust swirling around them. He was shooting blind.

She staggered to her feet, turning in a circle; fear irrepressible. There was no way she could protect Nick, her breath was ragged as tears streamed down her face. She kept turning in a circle, knowing what had to happen, knowing what she had to do. Her neck prickled. She could smell Ricker; feel his eyes burning the back of her neck from the tree line.

He was lining up a shot, hatred burning through the sight.

She glanced at Nick through teary eyes, knowing that looking for Ricker was pointless. There was no time. He gave her a questioning look, waving his arms as the chopper settled above them.

She heard the crack.

It seemed to take forever.

She drew a breath, loud in her ears, reaching out to grab Nick's jacket and spin him out of the way. They both hit the ground with a grunt in slow motion, the sharp sting to her chest reeling time back to its normal speed. She grappled the gun from Nick's hand, firing off the last shot into the dark trees.

"I hate you!" she screamed after Ricker into the darkness, tears over her lips. Her finger continued to fire in dry clicks after the gun had emptied. Tears burned her eyes, feeling warmth flood her lungs as her sobs became choked.

Gunfire erupted from the chopper into the tree line.

Nick regained his bearings, the back of his neck warm. The warmth became a steady stream, oozing across his jaw as he felt her weight collapse on top of him.

He panicked.

"Kara.. no…no no no! Kara!" Nick screamed as he turned beneath her, watching her eyes flutter and close. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her onto her back, pulling off his jacket and pressing it to the front of her chest. "Get down here now!" he looked frantically into the spotlight at the chopper. "Now!"

There was blood all over his hands, he looked at them with disbelief; catching the calm expression that had settled over her face as his flinched in horror.

"No… no!" he screamed desperately as his hands went back to his jacket. "Get down here! Please!"


	14. Ashes, Dust, and BandAids?

The heat was extreme, needling in steaming rivulets at the strike point on the back of his neck. His forearm rested on the front of the shower stall, forehead on his arm as he merely stood there, feeling the sluice of water down his back.

It didn't matter how hot the water was, or how long he'd stayed in it…

…he still couldn't seem to get his hands clean.

There was no funeral, no body, no ashes, nothing to pay respect to. As with nothing she had existed, she'd disappeared into it; the hospital denying she was ever admitted, or even there. His argument with the desk clerk was still fresh in his ears; dried blood had still been on his clothes.

The frustration in the days following had compounded. His 'official' report reflected events he'd experienced in relation to 'Mrs. DeMonte'. The interviews by departments he'd never heard of had been endless after the scene he'd made at the hospital. Files were gone from the lab. Everything was gone. Ecklie had suspended him with pay for insubordination, psych eval, and put him on mandatory leave; but somehow he knew it was his way of giving him time to recover, even though the man was still an ass.

He was left with nothing but a ghost, unanswered questions, the guilt that his actions killed her, and the fear their last encounter had brought.

…………………'_who else did you condemn to a death sentence…?'_

The sadness in her eyes had been heartbreaking. He had seen fear, not fear for her own life, but her fear for his. Would she still have been afraid for their lives? Should he still be afraid?

…………………'_I can shoot you before you pull the trigger…'_

Steam was drawn into his lungs as he pulled in a deep breath, eyes parted slightly, feeling the heaviness of droplets on his lashes.

…………………'_no matter how fast you are… I'm faster…'_

Faster.

Fast enough to kill her.

…………………'_you're a kid… a little boy with a gun…'_

Teeth clenched so hard his jaw popped. He reached to turn off the water; his first day back to work after a week; thankfully not fired.

The ride there was routine; people said hello to him, he smiled in return. Everything felt muted, surreal, and mechanical as he worked. He stared at the computer screen, face unreadable as he tapped a yellow highlighter on his notepad.

He looked up at the radio, silence where music had been droning quietly in the background. The CD in the player had run out. It wasn't his, Sarah McLachlan; it was just there and he didn't want to work in silence; too much to think about. He didn't feel like finding something else to listen to, he didn't feel like doing much of anything.

He squinted to look at the status bar on the stereo across the room. It had finished the last song and was still playing, the silence hanging as the seconds moved on. Instead of getting up, he sat quietly listening to the words mixed with a melancholy piano.

Ghost track.

Fitting.

The words stung at him.

Snapping the cap onto the highlighter with his thumb, he tossed it onto the desk and pinched the bridge between his eyes. They were blurry. He couldn't get away from it. Every night since then he'd felt as if he could feel her watching. Every time he drove it felt like she was in the car next to him: faces in crowds, voices at the gas station, the shadows at night in his room. Her voice lingered in his head: their last conversation, the sadness in her eyes. He felt responsible: he could have aimed better; he could have thought quicker… he sighed. The what-ifs could go on forever, but he would always feel responsible for her death.

Mixed emotions hung on their last moments together. A glimpse of something greater had been so apparent; someone trapped in a freight train of the greater good as if the value of her own life was worthless. Is that what she thought of him? Is that why she'd used him? For a brief second he'd seen beyond the mask and it had terrified him. As she had seen a shred of herself in him, he'd also seen that same shred in her. Both were willing to lay themselves down for the greater good without conscious thought. And he couldn't stop thinking her death was his fault. His hands ran over his face, no matter what his superiors said, he wasn't ready to come back.

A presence had lingered in the back of his brain for several moments. A soft knock caught his attention on the doorframe. He looked up.

"Do you want to get some lunch?" Grissom asked quietly.

He squared his jaw, quiet, flicking his finger at a pen sitting on the notepad. Picking it up, he began to write silently, shaking his head.

"Sara and I would like to take you to lunch," he paused. "You need to get out of here."

Nick nodded, setting the pen down to slide the mouse. "Just let me finish this." He clicked a few more moments on the computer and logged out.

Sara watched Grissom and Nick move down the hall and finished her own writing, putting a decisive period at the end of the sentence. She pursed her lips, a small smile sliding over her features. Gathering all the papers together they went into a folder, pictures, music, everything she had found.

She followed them out to Grissom's truck, folder in hand, jumping into the backseat. Nick was deathly quiet as they drove, watching the lights slide by. They stopped at a regular diner, sitting at a half-booth near the back. Sara and Grissom sat on the cushioned seat; Nick sat in one of the chairs on the opposite side. The waitress came by and they ordered.

Silence.

Nick traced the water circle on the table with his finger, finally taking a sip from the glass. Sara sipped her hot chocolate, sliding the folder toward Nick. He opened the folder, a teenage picture of Kara sitting on top. It looked like a candid snapshot from a yearbook, the top of a violin's peg box and scroll just visible in her fingers at the bottom of the photo. A boy was giving her bunny ears.

His chair screeched slightly, the legs of his chair sliding back as he got up; one hand suddenly rifled forward and backward through his hair. "I came back to work to stop thinking about this," his voice was tight as his eyes flew to the picture again, then to Sara accusingly.

"Nick, sit down please," Grissom said calmly. "Let us explain."

Nick's face was defensive.

"Please."

Nick licked his lips, pressing his them together as he set his jaw and sat down. "I filed my official report, there's nothing else to tell."

"I've read the _'official'_ report," Grissom started. "We thought… we could fill in the blanks."

"Fill in the blanks?" he looked up through his eyebrows, lips still pursed tightly.

They were both silent a moment.

"You need questions answered," Sara started, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, "and so do we."

"I need…" he bit his bottom lip, drawing it out slowly. "I just need some more time," his voice was tense. "Excuse me," he said through a choked throat, getting up.

"Nick, don't go," Sara said suddenly.

"You don't get it do you?" he glared at both of them with narrowed eyes, his hand rifling through his hair again.

"We understand what you've been through, god knows you've been through a lot before but," Sara started.

"But this is different," he interrupted. "I was so buffaloed, so blinded by what I thought I had to do, I didn't realize what needed to be done," hands were defensively on his hips. He had begun to point accusingly at them, face finally softening as he ran a hand over it.

"You thought you had to protect her," Sara said quietly.

"So did you, so did everyone," he lamented, staring at the floor a moment. His voice became incredibly soft. "Look, she died because I didn't play my cues right. She died because I couldn't let it go, I couldn't follow protocol."

"She died because of who she chose to be. She knew the dangers and accepted the consequences of her actions," Grissom said quietly. "Sit down, please."

"To learn what? That I killed a real person instead of some military machine?" he said quietly, gesturing toward the picture. "I'm sorry but I can't do that."

"You deserve to know what she wanted to tell you," Grissom finished. "Between us, there is a completed picture that is still eluding us. A warning, something she wanted us to know."

He looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

Grissom gestured quietly to the chair again. "Please, sit."

He sank slowly to his seat with a seeth through his nose, taking a drink of the water. He couldn't decide if he even wanted to know. "Every time I close my eyes I see blood, and I've been trying for a week to connect the dots between the moment you asked me to process her clothes and the moment she stopped breathing," Nick said gently, setting his hands on the table and folding them.

Sara's eyes looked concerned, her hands reached across the table and patted his folded hands gently.

"The story isn't finished," Grissom said.

Nick's pause was long, eyes intensely dark as he looked up at them through his brows. "I don't think so either."

The three of them were silent, contemplating the implications.

Grissom leaned back, thinking. "Desdemona," he said simply. "I asked who she was. She answered Desdemona."

Nick blinked at him, not understanding.

"Shakespeare, a tragedy. What defines a tragedy?" Grissom thought out loud. He'd been waiting a week to finish her riddle.

"The hero dies," Sara took a drink of her hot chocolate.

Grissom nodded. "Desdemona is a submissive character in Othello. She plays the meek wife, but also an intensely bold woman who ultimately dies for her crime of being too audacious. She is killed by the very person she so desperately defends, Othello; a man manipulated by the evil Iago into thinking she is tainted, only to ultimately forgive him for his shortcoming."

Nick's eyes narrowed. "She knew she was going to die."

"And she knew how it was going to happen," Grissom's face was slightly curious as he watched Nick soak it in.

"The moment we stepped into her foyer, she knew people were unintentionally involved," Grissom took a sip from his mug. "She did everything she could to keep us out of it, and we were just too… inquisitive. So she looped us around so tight in our own questions, she played us like a… fiddle?"

"And I couldn't leave well enough alone." Nick's fingers tentatively touched the folder again, picking up the photo. "We stumbled into her world. She hadn't expected to end up in the hospital. Damn, how could I have been so blind?" he set it down again. "She was trying to get me off the trail in the hospital, send us packing to keep us out of it."

"And when she realized there was nothing she could do to stop us, her mission became damage control. The moment she got you to lie for her, was the moment she knew she could save your life," Sara watched him, the thoughts churning through his face.

The silence was welcome, his brain calm for the first time in a week. Dark eyes wandered over the photo, he had seen a glimpse of this person, from a better time. Soft freckles were lit on cheeks that had spent time out of doors; a high school senior key twinkled around her neck as subtle as the smile on the corners of her lips

"Who was she?" he heard his voice ask.

"Literal or official?" Sara responded gently.

Nick put his finger on the picture. "This person."

"Her birth certificate says Rorye McKinna, she's now twenty nine; that's a picture from high school," Sara started, fingers wrapped around her hot chocolate. "After Ecklie pulled us from the case, we got curious; found anything and everything we could, knowing we might need it."

He rolled the name over in his brain. "Where'd you get her name?" he asked quietly.

"_Yet there is granted us no place to rest; we vanish, we fall - the suffering humans - blind from one hour to another, like water thrown from cliff to cliff, for years… our brethren, into the unknown depths… vanish…_" Grissom said carefully. "Mrs. DeMonte's mantra. She talked to herself. Everything she did was a clue for us, but that… her compulsion to speak to herself was wholly real. A comfort mechanism, a way to calm and center herself when things were out of her control."

Nick pursed his lips. He'd seen her do it at the hospital, and on the mountain.

Grissom's eyes lit up, "That led me to believe it was induced by a childhood trauma. She tested my familiarity with Emerson, after that it was a matter of strategically dropped clues. Words to a very distinct classical song signified a time frame and a parent occupation, the slip of an accent gave us a place."

"We took that, and did some research. It took a lot of digging, but we were able to connect the clues with a bit of guessing and dumb luck. She was adopted. Open adoption, once she turned eighteen her records became public. She was born in Ireland, her mother died from cancer very young, her father was shot to death on his way to a performance with her in the car. A couple in the U.S. adopted her; they were killed in a car wreck a year after she graduated high school," Sara continued.

"Her father, the violinist," Nick said.

Grissom smiled.

Sara leaned back in the booth. "Her real father was shot to death on his way to a concert with her when she was eight. The car they were traveling in was wrecked, but she survived. Eyewitnesses in the newspaper article said she tried to pull her father out of the burning car and actually got him out before the car finally exploded from the gas tank. She spent months in a hospital with shrapnel injuries to her hands and arms, burns.

Nick thought a moment, taking another drink of water. "Who shot her father?"

Sara leaned up and slid the folder toward her, flipping through some of the papers. "That's the only thing we can't find. Cold case, no leads. She was adopted, came to America. Graduated top of her class, excelling in literature, music, math and science, a key member of a local skeet shooting club; but apparently couldn't keep herself out of trouble." She smiled slightly. "She had a principal rap sheet a mile long. One interesting one of note was she picked the lock on the boys locker room and stole all the pants to the opposing team's football uniforms, she got caught after her boyfriend ratted her out."

The corners of Nick's lips curved up slightly, eyes showing a glint of amusement.

"After her adoptive parents were killed, she disappeared."

"And reappears a decade later with scars and death," Nick took a deep breath. "I killed her, because I couldn't bear the thought of her abused by another man. I'm Othello."

Their silence was heavy.

"She made this choice from the moment she chose to involve us. She knew what she was doing, and she knew the consequences of her actions." Grissom reassured him. "She was willing to do anything to keep you safe,"

He'd heard that before. "Who was responsible for keeping her safe?" Nick swallowed.

The food was set carefully on the table in front of them.

"All this information is just facts," Nick said, pushing the food around with his fork. "She spent all that time with DeMonte to get close to one man. The guy who shot her was her target all along. She saw me as an opportunity and she took it, she used me to get him to come to her after she realized I was involved beyond saving. Why then leave you all the clues?"

Grissom stopped his fork, staring at Nick. "Her father's death," Grissom said absently. "She led us to her father's death, the second half of the riddle."

"Why?" Sara asked.

They chewed on their food thoughtfully. Nick was silent; he couldn't answer that question either. He knew what he saw; he knew what he felt in his gut, and her insistence on motive for her actions was burned into his memory.

_…………………'I don't kill people… I kill killers…'_

Her words stung him from beyond, and involuntary shiver across his shoulders as he looked at his two friends.

"Because the man she was after was the man that killed her father," the words barely came from Nick's lips.

It hung in the air, no one wanted to touch it.

"You think he's dead?" Sara finally asked, her voice muted.

"First rule of one of the greatest literary forms in the world," Grissom started. "No one is ever dead until you see the body, even then it's still up for question."

"Shakespeare again?" Sara asked.

"Comic books," Grissoms face quirked.

"This one's on me," Sara grinned, rolling her eyes, picking up the folder and sliding out of the booth to go up to the counter and pay the bill.

Grissom wiped his lips on a napkin and took a folded envelope from the pocket of his shirt, holding it in his fingers a moment before handing it over to Nick. He understood the gravity that was weighing on Nick's brain, not willing to divulge it with anyone else yet. His comment to Sara had been in jest, but the intent was purely serious.

"This came in the mail for you today."

Nick took it, setting down his fork. He looked at it in his hand for a moment, not recognizing the return address. His lips pursed, eyes hooded in deep thought as his brows furrowed in question.

"Do you know what's in here?" he asked.

Grissom nodded, "Something only you would understand."

Nick's thumb slid under the edge, sliding out a piece of paper, unfolding it carefully. Something fell out of it. He looked at the blank piece of paper, then the return address again; feminine handwriting very prominently scrolled. Reaching down and picking the other item up off the floor, he looked confused.

It was a band-aid.

He looked again at the bogus return address, looking to Grissom, the confusion sliding away from the corners of his eyes as he resisted the urge to scan every female face in the diner.

Grissom pursed his lips.

Nick flicked the band-aid in his fingers, reaching for his wallet. He paused before he slipped the band-aid into it, changing his mind. Lifting his ID badge, he nestled it behind his picture. A totem. Perhaps not enough to stop a bullet, but the thought it was there straightened his shoulders a bit.

His body tingled, face unreadable as a boyishly wicked smile coursed over his lips, subdued as he pursed his lips thoughtfully. He took the last bite of his lunch, sliding the plate forward.

The tingling slowly gave way to a sense of dread. The urge to look over his shoulder replaced the small twinkle of joy, followed by a realization of inevitable certainty. Somehow he couldn't believe the man, Ricker, was dead. If he was alive, who stood between him and the threat he'd made? He could never forgive himself if anything happened to his friends; he'd warned the feds, told everyone everything he knew in the endless interviews.

They'd assured him he was safe.

He suddenly didn't believe them.

"Perhaps then, we need a guardian angel," Grissom raised his brow and knocked back the rest of his mug. He stood, moving toward the truck.

Nick licked his lips, tossing down a tip before he stood. "I think we already have one," he said under his breath, following them out.

((Thanks for all your help and candid reviews. Hope to start another adventure soon. References to Sarah McLachlan's ghost track "Possession" off the album "Fumbling Toward Ecstasy". Quotes courtesy of Ralph Waldo Emerson's; "Essay VIII Heroism", and Brahms' "Schicksalslied"- The Song of Fate. And of course, character references to Shakespeare's (Billy Wigglesword's) "Othello".))


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